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tihvavy  of  Che  trheolojical  ^tminary 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 
PRESENTED  BY 

Mr.  Hoel  Lawrence  McQueen 

BX  5937  .M2756  G6 
McKim,  Randolph  H.  1842- 

1920. 
The  gospel  in  the  Christia 


4E  GOSPEL  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  YEAR 


BY    THE   SAME    AUTHOR 


"CHRIST    AND    MODERN    UNBELIEF."     i2mo. 
"PRESENT     DAY      PROBLEMS     OF      CHRISTIAN 
THOUGHT."       i2ino. 


NEW  YORK:   THOMAS  WHITTAKER 


THE  GOSPEL^ 0^^28  1936 
IN   THE  CHRISTIAN   YEAR 

AND  IN  CHRISTIAN  EXPERIENCE 


PRACTICAL  SERMONS  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

ADVENT  TO  TRINITY 


BY     • 

RANDOLPH    H.   McKIM,  D.D. 

RECTOR  OF   THE   CHURCH   OF   THE   EPIPHANY,   WASHINGTON,    D.  C. 


SECOND  EDITION 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND   CO. 

91  AND  93  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

LONDON  AND  BOMBAY 

1903 


Oopyrig-ht,  1908, 

BY 

RANDOLPH  H.  MoKIM 


ROBERT  DRCMMOND,  PRINTER,  NEW  YORK 


To 
The  dear  People 

of 

The  Church  of  the  Epiphany, 

Washington,  D.  C., 

These  Sermons 

Are  affectionately  dedicated^ 

By  their 

Friend  and  Minister. 


AsvxNT,  190e. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Sermon  I.  For  Advent  Sunday 1 

The  Two  Ad\^nts. 

"The  grace  of  God  that  bringeth  salvation  liath  appeared  to  all  men, 
teaching  us  that,  denying  ungodliness  and  worldly  lusts,  we  should 
live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly,  in  this  present  tvorld;  looking 
for  that  blessed  hope,  and  the  glorious  appearing  of  the  great  God 
and  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ." — Titus  ii.  11-13. 

Sermon  II.  For  the  Second  Sunday  in  Advent   10 

Christ  the  Hope  of  the  Ages. 

"Now  the  God  of  hope  fill  you  with  all  joy  and  peace  in  believing, 
that  ye  may  abound  in  hope,  through  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 
— Rom.  XV.  13. 

Sermon  III.  For  the  Third  Sunday  in  Advent 19 

The  Harvest  of  the  Great  Day. 

"  We  must  all  appear  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ;  that 
every  one  may  receive  the  things  done  in  his  body,  according  to  that 
he  hath  done,  whether  it  be  good  or  bad." — II.  Cor.  v.  10. 

Sermon  IV.  For  the  Fourth  Sunday  in  Advent 30 

Justification  by  Faith — Judgment  According  to  Works. 

"And  now.  Lord,  what  is  my  hope  f  " — Psalm  xxxix.  8  (Prayer 
Book  Version). 

Sermon  V.  For  Christmas  Day    43 

A  Little  Child  Shall  Lead  Them. 

"A  little  child  shall  lead  them." — Isaiah  xi.  6. 

Sermon  VI.  For  the  Sunday  after  Christmas 50 

The  Mystery  of  the  Incarnation. 

"  Great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness ;  God  was  manifest  in  the 
flesh."— 1.  Tim.  iii.  16. 

vii 


viii  Contents 


PAOB 

Sermon  VII.  For  the  First  Sunday  in  the  New  Year 61 

God's  Presence  a  Talisman  for  the  New  Year. 

"And  He  said :  My  presence  shall  go  with  thee,  and  I  will  give 
thee  rest.  And  he  said  unto  Him :  If  Thy  presence  go  not  with  me, 
carry  us  not  up  hence." — ExoduB  xxxiii.  14,  15. 

Sermon  VIII.  For  the  First  Smiday  after  Ephipany 72 

The  Gospel  op  the  Morning. 

"  Watchman,  what  of  the  night  t  Watchman,  what  of  the  night  t 
.  .  .  The  morning  cometh." — Isaiah  xxi.  11. 

Sermon  IX.  For  the  Second  Svmday  after  Epiphany 81 

The  Holy  Estate  of  Matrimony. 

"Wives,  submit  yoursehies  unto  your  oun  husbands,  as  unto  the 
Lord.  For  the  husband  is  the  head  of  the  wife,  even  as  Christ  is  the 
head  of  the  church  :  and  He  is  the  Saviour  of  the  body.  Therefore 
as  the  church  is  subject  unto  Christ,  so  let  the  wives  be  to  their  own 
husbands  in  every  thing.  Husbands,  love  your  wives,  even  as 
Christ  also  loved  the  church,  and  gave  Himself  for  it;  that  He  might 
sanctify  and  cleanse  it  with  the  wasJnng  of  water  by  the  word,  that 
He  might  present  it  to  Himself  a  glorious  church,  not  having  spot,  or 
wrinkle,  or  any  such  thing  ;  but  that  it  should  be  holy  and  without 
blemish.  So  ought  men  to  love  their  wives  as  their  own  bodies.  He 
that  loveth  his  iinfe  loveth  himself.  For  no  man  ever  yet  hated  his 
own  flesh;  hut  nourisheth  and  cherisheth  it,  even  as  the  Lord  the 
church;  for  we  are  members  of  His  body,  of  His  flesh,  and  of  His 
bones.  For  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and  mother,  and 
shall  be  joined  unto  his  wife,  and  they  two  shall  be  one  flesh.  This  is 
a  great  mystery  :  but  I  speak  concerning  Christ  and  the  church." — 
Eph.  V.  22-32. 

Sermon  X.  For  the  Third  Sunday  after  Epiphany 92 

Disastrous  Effects  of  the  Selfish  Principle  in  Societt. 

"And  as  the  shipmen  were  about  to  flee  out  of  the  ship,  when  they 
had  let  down  the  boat  into  the  sea,  under  color  as  though  they  would 
have  cast  anchors  out  of  the  foreship,  Paul  said  to  the  centurion  and 
to  the  soldiers.  Except  these  abide  in  the  ship,  ye  cannot  be  saved. 
Then  the  soldiers  cut  off  the  ropes  of  the  boat,  and  let  her  fall  off." 
— Acts  xxvii.  30-32. 

Sermon  XI.  For  the  Fourth  Sunday  after  Epiphany 102 

The  Gadarene  Choice — Christ,  or  the  Swine  ?j 

"And,  behold,  the  whole  city  came  out  to  meet  Jesus;  and  when 
they  saw  Him,  they  besought  Him  that  He  would  depart  out  of  their 
coasts." — St.  Matt.  viii.  34. 


Contents  ix 

PAGE 

Sermon  XII.  For  the  Fifth  Sunday  after  Epiphany 114 

The  LiinTATiON  of  Probation. 

"Seek  ye  the  Lard  while  He  may  be  found;  call  ye  upon  Him 
while  He  is  near." — Isaiah  Iv.  6. 

Sermon  XIII.  For  the  Sixth  Sunday  after  Epiphany 125 

The  Transforming  Energy  of  the  Gospel. 

"Put  on  the  new  man  I  " — Eph.  iv.  24. 

"Arise,  take  up  thy  bed,  and  go  unto  thine  house." — Matt.  ix.  6. 

Sermon  XTV.  For  Septuagesima  Sunday. 137 

:  The  Christian  Calling  and  Election. 

"Many  are  called,  but  feu-  chosen." — Matt.  xxii.  J4. 

Sermon  XV.  For  Sexagesima  Sunday 147 

Heredity,  Environment,  and  Free  Agency. 

"Behold,  a  sower  went  forth  to  sow." — St.  Matt.  xiii.  3. 

Sermon  XVI.  For  Quinquagesima  Sunday 157 

Blind  Bartim^us. 

"And  it  came  to  pass,  that  as  He  was  come  nigh  unto  Jericho,  a 
certain  blind  man  sat  by  the  umyside  begging  ;  and  hearing  the  multi- 
tude pass  by  he  asked  what  it  meant.  And  they  told  him  that  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  passeth  by.  And  he  cried,  saying  :  'Jesus,  Thou  Son 
of  David,  have  mercy  cm  me  I'  " — St.  Luke  xviii.  35-38. 

Sermon  XVII.  For  Ash  Wednesday 166 

Self-denlal  and  the  Cross. 

"He  that  taketh  not  his  cross  and  foUoweth  after  Me,  is  not  worthy 
of  Me."— Matt.  x.  38. 

Sermon  XVIII.  For  the  First  Sunday  in  Lent 175 

The  Temptation  of  Christ. 

"  Then  was  Jesus  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness,  to  be 
tempted  of  the  devil." — St.  Matt.  iv.  1. 

Sermon  XIX.  For  the  Second  Sunday  in  Lent 184 

The  Syrophcenician  Woman. 

"  Then  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  her, '  O  woman,  great  is  thy 
faith;  be  it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt.'  And  her  daughter  was 
made  whole  from  that  very  hour." — Matt.  xv.  28. 


X  Contents 

Sermon  XX.  For  the  Third  Sunday  in  Lent 193 

The  Tent  Pitched  Toward  Sodom. 

"Lot  pitched  his  tent  toward  Sodom." — Gen.  xiii.  12. 

Sermon  XXI.  For  the  Fourth  Simday  in  Lent 204 

The  Five  Loaves  and  the  Two  Small  Fishes. 

"  There  is  a  lad  here  which  hath  five  barley  loaves  and  two  small 
fishes  ;  but  what  are  they  among  so  many  ?  " — John  vi.  9. 

Sermon  XXII.  For  the  Fifth  Sunday  in  Lent 214 

The  Prodigal  Son. 

"And  he  said,  A  certain  man  had  two  sons :  and  the  younger  of 
them  said  to  his  father,  Father,  give  me  the  portion  of  goods  that 
falleth  to  me.  And  he  divided  unto  them  his  living.  And  not  many 
days  after  the  younger  son  gathered  all  together,  and  took  his  jour- 
ney into  a  far  country,  and  there  wasted  his  substance  with  riotous 
living."— St.  Luke  xv.  11-13. 

Sermon  XXIIT.  For  Pahn  Sunday 223 

Christ  Weeping  Over  Jerusalem. 

"And  when  He  was  come  near  He  beheld  the  city  and  wept  over 
it." — Luke  xix.  41. 

Sermon  XXIV.  For  Good-Friday 232 

The  Lamb  Slain  from  the  Foundation, 

"The  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world." — Rev.  xiii.  8. 
"  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself." — II.  Cor. 
V.  19. 

Sermon  XXV,  For  Easter  Day 240 

Who  Shall  Roll  Away  the  Stone  from  the 
Sepulchre? 

"And  they  said  among  themselves,  who  shall  roll  us  away  the  ttone 
from  the  door  of  the  sepulchre  t" — Mark  xvi.  3. 

Sermon  XXVI.  For  the  First  Sunday  after  Easter 251 

The  Evidence  for  the  Christian  Religion   Sufficient, 
Though  not  Demonstrative. 

"Then  came  the  Jews  round  about  Him,  and  said  unto  Him 
'How  long  dost  thou  make  us  to  doubt  f  If  thou  be  the  Christ,  tell 
us  plainly.'  " — John  x.  24. 


Contents  xi 


PAGE 

Sermon  XXVII.  For  the  Second  Sunday  after  Easter 261 

The   Conclusiveness   of  Personal    Christl4.n 
Experience  in  Refutation  of  Unbelief. 

"The  man  answered  and  said  unto  them,  Why  herein  is  a  mar- 
vellous thing,  that  ye  know  not  from  whence  He  is,  and  yet  He 
hath  opened  mine  eyes." — John  ix.  30. 

Sermon  XXVIII.  For  the  Third  Sunday  after  Easter 270 

Enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ. 

"  They  are  the  enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ." — Phil.  iii.  18. 

Sermon  XXIX.  For  the  Fourth  Sunday  after  Easter 281 

Laying  Hold  on  Eternal  Life 

"O  man  of  God  .  .  .  lay  hold  on  eternal  life." — I.  Tim.  vi.  11. 

Sermon  XXX.  For  the  Fifth  Sunday  after  Easter 289 

The  Layman's  Responsibility. 

"  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth  ;  ...  ye  are  the  light  of  the  world." 
—Matt.  V.  13,  14. 

Sermon  XXXI.  For  Ascension  Day 300 

The  Place  of  the  Ascension  in  the  Economy   of 
Redemption. 

"His  mighty  power,  which  He  wrought  in  Christ,  when  He  raised 
Him  from  the  dead,  and  set  Him  at  His  own  right  hand  in  the 
heavenly  places,  far  above  all  principality ,  and  power,  and  might, 
and  dominion,  and  every  name  that  is  named,  not  only  in  this  world, 
but  also  in  that  which  is  to  come  :  and  hath  put  all  things  under  His 
feet,  and  gave  Him  to  be  the  head  over  all  things  to  the  Church." — 
Eph.  i.  19-22. 

Sermon  XXXII.  For  the  Sunday  after  Ascension  Day 309 

The  Holy  Communion. 

"Come  unto  Me." — Matt.  xi.  28. 

"Come,  for  all  things  are  now  reo<fj/."-^Luke  xiv.  17. 

"Do  this  in  remembrance  of  Me." — Luke  xxii.  19. 

Sermon  XXXIII.  For  Whitsunday 320 

A  Modern  Pentecost  and  its  Lesson. 

"And  the  seventh  angel  sounded;  and  there  were  great  voices  in 
heaven,  saying.  The  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  become  the  kingdoms 
of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ ;  and  He  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever." 
Rev.  xi.  15. 


xii  Contents 

PAGE 

Sermon  XXXIV.  For  Trinity  Sunday    331 

The  Light  of  the  Holy  Trinity. 

" The  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love'of  Ood,  and 
th«  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  be  vrith  you  all.  Amen." — 
II.  Cor.  xiii.  14. 


THE  GOSPEL  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  YEAR 


THE   TWO   ADVENTS 


FOR  ADVENT  SUNDAY 


"  The  grace  of  God  that  bringeth  salvation  hath  appeared  to  all  men, 
teaching  us  that,  denying  ungodliness  and  worldly  lusts,  we 
should  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly,  in  this  present 
world;  looking  for  that  blessed  hope,  and  the  glorious  appearing 
of  the  great  God  and  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ." 

Titus  ii.  11-13. 

Our  services  have  reminded  us  that  we  are  entering 
to-day  upon  a  new  Christian  Year,  and  the  question 
naturally  arises,  Why  should  the  Church  observe  a  dif- 
ferent year  from  the  civil  year,  which  begins  a  month 
later  ?  Two  reasons  may  be  given.  In  the  first  place 
the  Church  seeks  to  impress  upon  her  children  the  ex- 
istence of  a  higher  sphere  than  this  temporal  one — a 
world  greater  and  fairer  than  this  world  of  sense — and 
to  write  deeply  upon  their  minds  the  fact  that  they  stand 
in  close  and  vital  relation  to  that  invisible,  supernal 
sphere.  The  Christian  Year  embodies  this  thought.  It 
is  a  continual  reminder  that  the  Christian  must  reckon 
with  the  imseen,  with  the  eternal;  that  he  has  higher 
relations  than  those  which  bind  him  to  the  world  of  time 


2  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

and  sense,  to  business,  to  society,  to  his  physical  environ- 
ment. Again,  the  Church  Year  is  intended  to  bring 
before  our  minds  every  year  that  greiat  cycle  of  evangelic 
facts  which  embody  at  once  the  story  of  redemption  and 
the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  gospel.  Thus  the  great 
events  of  that  Life  which  is  the  Light  of  the  World  are 
set  forth  by  the  services  of  the  Church  with  each  revolv- 
ing year,  because  in  them  are  to  be  found  the  perennial 
springs  of  moral  and  spiritual  life  for  men.  In  this  way 
the  Christian  Year  has  the  very  highest  practical  value. 
It  tells  in  the  ears  of  men,  year  after  year,  the  old,  old 
story  of  Jesus  and  His  love.  It  preaches  Christ  to  those 
who  attend  the  services  of  the  Church,  even  though  the 
pulpit  should  be  ineffective,  or  untrue  to  its  highest  func- 
tion. It  proclaims  to  the  whole  world  that  that  won- 
drous Life  which  began  unnoticed  in  Bethlehem,  and 
ended  in  agony  and  ignominy  on  Calvary,  has  a  per- 
petual relation  of  help  and  healing  to  the  care  and  the 
sorrow  and  the  sin  of  the  children  of  men. 

We  are  concerned  to-day,  however,  in  particular  with 
the  significance  of  the  season  of  Advent;  and  the  pas- 
sage which  I  have  chosen  as  my  text  may  be  taken  as 
expressive  of  the  purpose  of  that  season,  viz.,  this :  to  fix 
our  minds  upon  the  two  Advents  of  Christ;  the  first  in 
great  humility,  a  manifestation  of  the  grace  of  God 
bringing  salvation  to  men,  and  teaching  them  to  live 
soberly,  righteously,  and  godly  in  this  present  world; 
and  the  second  in  power  and  great  glory,  at  some  future 
day  known  only  to  God  Himself,  when  He  shall  come  in 
person,  not  to  redeem  but  to  judge  the  world. 

For  four  weeks,  one  or  other  of  these  aspects  of 
Advent  is  emphasized  by  the  Church,  and  thus  the 
season  is  a  yearly  recurring  assertion  of  the  vital  im 


The  Two  Advents  3 

portance  of  those  two  great  events  to  every  human  bemg. 
It  arrests  to-day  the  attention  of  every  one  of  us,  and 
bids  us  reflect  upon  Christ's  Advent — His  first  Advent 
in'  saving,  redeeming  power,  and  His  second  Advent  as 
the  Righteous  Judge  to  whom  we  must  each  one  give 
account  of  "  the  deeds  done  in  the  body." 

But,  my  friends,  what  does  the  Advent  mean  to  us? 
What  have  you  and  I  to  do  with  the  two  great  comings 
of  Christ?  I  answer,  we  have  this  to  do  wdth  it — that 
these  two  events  should  govern  and  shape  our  whole 
Uves.  They  may  be  compared  with  the  foci  of  an  eUipse. 
The  two  focal  points  determine  the  form  of  the  eUipse. 
Every  point  of  its  periphery  has  a  definite  relation  to 
the  foci.  And  so,  I  urge,  the  whole  course  of  our  Uves, 
the  whole  trend  of  our  conduct,  the  whole  development 
of  our  character,  should  be  governed  and  determined  by 
those  two  fixed  facts — the  first  and  second  comings  of 
Christ.  What  you  and  I  are,  how  we  act,  what  we  seek 
and  what  we  hope  for,  on  what  principles  we  five,  to 
what  objects  we  devote  our  energies,  how  we  meet  the 
responsibihties  of  life,  how  we  bear  its  burdens,  its  cares, 
its  sorrows,  whether  or  not  we  grapple  resolutely  with 
the  temptations  that  beset  our  path,  and  whether  we 
come  off  conquerors  at  last,  cannot  but  be  determined 
by  these  two  great  events,  the  two  Advents  of  Christ,  if 
indeed  we  beHeve  them  truly,  and  do  not  suffer  them 
to  be  obscured  by  other  things. 

1.  Let  us  first  consider  the  Advent  of  the  Son  of  God 
into  our  world  in  the  lowly  guise  of  a  man,  "  a  man  of 
sorrows  and  acquainted  wdth  grief,"  suffering,  dying  for 
our  sin.  Reflect  a  moment  and  you  will  see  that  the  di- 
vine self-manifestation  in  the  Incarnation  has  completely 
<ihanged  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the  world.    It  has 


4  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

given  a  new  horizon  to  human  hfe.  Man  henceforth 
has  a  new  outlook  and  a  new  uplook.  We  are  confronted 
by  the  marvellous  facts  that  shine  like  a  halo  around  the 
birth  of  the  child  Jesus.  We  approach  and  study  His 
manhood.  It  only  grows  more  wonderful,  more  divine 
the  more  it  is  studied.  Here  is  a  phenomenon  altogether 
unprecedented,  unparalleled  —  such  spotless  purity, 
such  profound  insight,  such  matchless  wisdom,  such 
power  over  the  consciences  of  men,  such  clearness  of 
spiritual  vision,  such  sweetness,  such  meekness,  such 
majesty,  such  moral  grandeur;  and  the  man  who 
combines  aU  these  qualities  tells  us  that  He  is  the 
Son  of  God,  that  He  came  down  from  above,  that  the 
Heavenly  Father  had  sent  Him  into  the  world,  that 
He  came  to  reveal  the  Father,  and  to  reunite  the  severed 
tie  between  God  and  man. 

Such  an  one  as  He  could  not  deceive,  neither  could  He 
be  deceived;  and  so  we  are  constrained  to  beUeve  the 
account  He  gives  of  Himself  and  of  His  mission. 

But  if  this  be  true,  then  what  a  sublime  fact  the  Ad- 
vent presents  for  our  contemplation!  God  was  mani- 
fest in  the  flesh.  The  Word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt 
among  us.  The  eternal  Son  of  God  took  our  human 
nature  into  union  with  the  divine.  How  then  is  human- 
ity clothed  with  a  new  dignity,  a  new  nobility,  by  the 
Advent!  What  a  crown  of  glory  is  bestowed  upon 
human  nature  by  this  act  of  the  Son  of  God  in  entering 
into  it — ^yea,  uniting  it  to  His  own  divine  nature !  Hence- 
forth it  has  a  meaning,  a  ministry,  a  destiny  it  never 
had  before.  Every  man  in  the  whole  world,  of  whatever 
land  or  language,  of  whatever  age  or  race,  is  ennobled 
by  this  fact — and  cannot  but  feel  himself  ennobled — 
when  once  he  reaUzes  it,  even  imperfectly. 


The  Two  Advents  S 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  purpose  of  the  Advent  was  to 
save  man.  "The  grace  of  God  that  bringeth  salvation 
to  all  men  [so  it  should  be  rendered]  appeared"  in  the 
Incarnation  and  Advent  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  This  also 
is  a  truth  made  vivid  and  vital  to  us  by  this  season,  on 
which  we  enter  to-day.  Surely  it  is  a  truth  that  ought 
to  stir  every  one  of  us  to  the  very  depths  of  his  being. 
It  is  God  Himself  who  was  manifest  in  Christ:  God's 
love,  God's  pity,  God's  loving-kindness,  God's  sacrifice 
of  Himself  for  our  sin. 

When  I  think  of  this,  God  is  nearer,  dearer  than  before. 
He  wins  and  commands  my  adoring  love  and  gratitude 
as  never  before.  With  amazement  I  realize  that  one 
such  as  I  am,  so  weak,  so  unworthy,  so  sinful,  at  best  so 
unprofitable  a  servant,  has  been  the  object  of  such 
condescension,  of  such  pity,  of  such  love.  Bethlehem 
and  Gethsemane  and  Calvary  show  me  the  heart  of  God, 
and  I  marvel  as  I  see  that  the  agony  and  the  bloody 
sweat  were  for  me !  What  then?  Can  I  Uve  as  if  all 
tliis  had  not  been?  as  if  that  sacrifice  had  not  been  made? 
Impossible!  The  Advent  has  touched  me — changed 
me.  It  has  become  a  directing,  moulding  force  in  my 
life!  ■ 

2.  But  there  is  a  second  Advent,  to  which  also  the 
Church  directs  our  thoughts,  throughout  this  season. 
The  message  is  twofold.  Not  only  that  Christ  came  in 
the  flesh  nineteen  centuries  ago,  but  that  He  will  come 
again  in  His  kingly  glory.  So  the  apostle  in  our  text 
points  us  forward  to  that  "blessed  hope  and  appear- 
ing of  the  glory  of  the  great  God  and  our  Saviour  Jesus 
Clmst."  * 

*  See  the  Revised  Version. 


6  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

Now  this  second  Advent  is  an  event  as  certain  as  the 
first.  "  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away,"  said  Christ, 
"  but  My  word  shall  not  pass  away."  And  He  foretold 
His  second  coming  plainly,  solemnly,  repeatedly :  "  The 
Son  of  Man  shall  come  in  His  glory,  and  all  the  holy  angels 
with  Him."  "  As  the  lightning  cometh  out  of  the  east 
and  shineth  even  unto  the  west,  so  shall  the  coming  of 
the  Son  of  man  be."  "  Then  shall  He  reward  every  man 
according  to  his  works."  Yes,  as  surely  as  the  sun  shall 
rise  to-morrow,  Christ  will  come  again  to  our  earth,  not 
to  suffer,  but  to  reign ;  not  to  be  mocked  and  scourged, 
but  to  be  hailed  as  the  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords; 
not  in  humiliation,  but  in  glory;  not  to  be  nailed  to  a 
cross,  but  to  sit  on  the  throne  of  eternal  judgment. 

The  character  of  tliis  second  Advent  was  foreshadowed 
in  Christ's  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem,  which,  ac- 
cordingly, is  made  the  subject  of  the  Gospel  for  Advent 
Sunday.  Only  in  this  light  can  we  understand  the  ap- 
propriateness of  such  a  passage  for  the  solemn  Advent 
season.  The  Son  of  Man  triumphant — the  centre  of 
worshipping  and  adoring  multitudes  who  hail  Him  with 
hosannas  as  the  Son  of  David,  as  the  King  of  Israel, 
while  the  waving  palms  tell  of  His  victory,  of  His  triumph ! 
In  another  feature  the  occurrences  on  that  one  day  of  tri- 
umph in  the  fife  of  the  Man  of  Sorrows  foreshadowed 
and  prefigured  the  second  Advent.  The  Prophet  of 
Galilee  went  into  the  Temple  of  God  at  Jerusalem  and 
cast  out  aU  them  that  sold  and  bought  in  the  Temple, 
and  overthrew  the  tables  of  the  money-changers,  and  the 
seats  of  them  that  sold  doves,  and  said  unto  them,  "  It 
is  written,  My  house  shall  be  called  the  house  of  prayer, 
but  ye  have  made  it  a  den  of  thieves." 

Christ  will  come  to  cleanse  His  temple,  the  Church — 


The  Two  Advents  7 

to  cast  out  everything  that  defileth — to  separate  the 
wheat  from  the  chaff,  in  that  great  day. 

Now,  the  good  and  the  evil  are  mixed ;  the  tares  and 
the  wheat  grow  together;  the  true  and  the  false  disciple 
sit  side  by  side;  the  wise  and  the  foolish  virgins  are  alike 
reckoned  in  the  Bridegroom's  train ;  but  a  day  of  sifting 
and  separation  is  coming.  "The  Lord,"  cries  the 
prophet,  "  shall  suddenly  come  to  His  temple.  .  .  .  But 
who  may  abide  the  day  of  His  coming  ?  And  who  shall 
stand  when  He  appeareth?  For  He  is  like  a  refiner's 
fire."     (Mai.  iii.  1,  2.) 

Such,  then,  is  the  twofold  aspect  of  the  second  Advent. 
It  will  be  the  consummation  of  the  glory  and  of  the 
triumph  of  Christ  and  the  inauguration  of  His  perfected 
kingdom.  It  will  also  be  the  consummation  of  the  pro- 
cesses of  judgment  both  in  the  world  and  in  the  Church, 
whereby  each  soul  will  stand  revealed  in  its  true  charac- 
ter, and  shall  inherit  the  destiny  which  its  own  conduct 
had  prepared.  Now  the  Church  seeks  by  means  of  this 
season  of  Advent  to  bring  home  to  her  children  the  reali- 
zation of  this  sublime  event,  so  glorious  in  one  aspect, 
so  fearful  in  the  other,  confident  that  if  men  will  realize  it, 
even  in  a  faint  and  feeble  degree,  it  must  become  a 
potent  influence  in  determining  conduct  and  moulding 
character. 

Speaking  in  her  name  to-day  I  would  affectionately 
urge  you,  my  brethren,  to  consider  the  tremendous 
event  which  Advent  foreshadows.  Christ  is  coming  to 
reign!  Christ  is  coming  to  judgment!  He  is  coming 
to  reign.  His  kingdom  T\dll  be  estabhshed.  Falsehood 
and  wrong,  cruelty  and  injustice,  lust  and  covetousness, 
selfishness  and  greed,  yea,  all  the  enemies  of  truth  and 
peace  and  love  shaU  be  brought  into  subjection  under 


8  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

His  feet.  The  man  who  shall  in  that  day  be  found  in 
league  with  the  kingdom  of  evil,  in  any  of  its  forms,  will 
have  no  part  in  His  triumph,  no  share  in  His  kingdom. 
But  every  one  who  loves  truth  and  purity  and  justice 
and  mercy  and  charity,  every  one  who  hungers  and 
thirsts  after  righteousness,  every  one  who  has  been  in 
sympathy  with  Christ's  ideal,  and  has  wrought  for  its 
realization,  will  be  partaker  in  His  glory  and  in  His 
triumph.  Let  this  thought  stimulate  you  to  a  higher 
aim  in  life ;  let  it  kindle  within  you  the  flame  of  a  nobler 
ideal.  Be  worthy  of  so  great  a  possible  destiny!  Re- 
fuse to  sell  such  a  birthright  for  any  mess  of  pottage  that 
the  world  can  offer! 

And  then  remember,  too,  Christ  is  coming  to  judg- 
ment. In  one  sense  He  is  ever  coming  to  judgment. 
Each  day,  each  hour.  He  weighs  our  motives  and  sifts 
our  conduct.  We  sin  in  His  sight,  and  He  condemns  our 
sin  We  let  go  our  high  ideal,  and  at  once  He  sees  it  with 
sorrow.  We  compromise  our  purity,  our  faith,  our 
truth,  and  at  once  He,  our  Judge,  indicts  us  for  our 
transgression.  But  it  is  also  true  that  a  great  day  is 
coming  when  the  Son  of  Man  will  execute  judgment 
upon  transgressors.  The  processes  of  judgment  will 
reach  a  climax.  Judgment  long  deferred  will  be  exe- 
cuted. The  results  of  life's  probation  will  be  tested. 
Every  man's  conduct  and  character  will  be  subjected 
to  a  sifting  process.  All  shams  and  disguises  and  hy- 
pocrisies and  self-deceits  will  be  stripped  away,  and  the 
naked  reality,  good  or  bad,  stand  revealed.  "  We  must 
all  appear,"  or  rather  "we  must  all  be  made  manifest, 
before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ." 

The  Refiner's  fire  will  try  us;  and  we  shall  be  mani- 
fested before  the  eyes  of  men  and  angels  in  our  true 


The  Two  Advents  9 

colors.  Our  inner  man  shall  be  seen.  Our  real  charac- 
ter shall  appear.  From  that  impartial  judgment  there 
will  be  no  appeal,  for  it  will  but  register  the  decrees 
of  conscience.  "He  that  is  unjust,  let  him  be  unjust 
still;  and  he  that  is  filthy,  let  him  be  filthy  still;  and  he 
that  is  holy,  let  him  be  holy  still." 

Men  and  brethren,  let  the  solemn  fact  of  that  great 
day  of  judgment  be  often  before  our  minds.  Let  it 
sober  us.  Let  it  restrain  us.  Let  it  rebuke  our  folly. 
Let  it  warn  us  to  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly 
in  this  present  world. 

Meanwhile  let  us  pray  our  Judge  and  Saviour  to  visit 
us  now  in  the  time  of  this  mortal  hfe,  to  search  us,  and 
to  cleanse  us.  So,  that  day  will  not  find  us  unprepared; 
so,  the  Lord  when  He  cometh  to  the  temple  of  our  hearts 
will  not  find  it  polluted  and  unclean;  so,  the  Refiner's 
fire  will  cleanse,  but  not  consume  us,  and  the  coming 
of  the  Son  of  Man  will  mean  for  us,  not  condemnation, 
but  redemption 


CHRIST    THE    HOPE    OF   THE   AGES 

FOR   THE    SECOND   SUNDAY   IN   ADVENT 

"  Now  the  God  of  hope  fill  you  with  all  joy  and  peace  in  believing, 
that  ye  may  abound  in  hope,  through  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost." — Rom.  xv.  13. 

A  WATCHER  sits  alone  upon  the  mountain  waiting  for 
the  light  of  day  to  show  him  the  path  that  shall  lead 
him  to  his  home. 

Through  the  long,  silent  hours  of  the  night  he  waits 
for  the  dawn.  He  has  no  watch  to  mark  the  time,  and 
so  he  looks  eagerly  for  some  sign  betokening  the  ap- 
proach of  sunrise.  Ever  and  anon  as  the  hours  drag 
their  slow  length  his  eye  catches  a  faint  glimmer  in  the 
valleys  beneath  him.  Is  the  dawn  approaching?  No, 
it  is  but  the  phosphorescent  gleam  of  some  ignis  fatuus 
flickering  over  the  marshes. 

But  see,  the  sky  grows  suddenly  radiant.  Light  pulses 
upward  from  the  horizon  to  the  zenith.  Tongues  as  of 
violet  flame  flash  in  the  darkness.  Words  fail  to  paint 
the  wondrous  glow  that  mantles  the  cheek  of  night. 
Is  this,  then,  the  glory  of  morning  bursting  upon  the 
world  ?  Ah,  no,  it  is  but  the  aurora  borealis;  and  all 
its  wondrous  beauty  presently  pales  and  sinks  and 
vanishes  away.  The  watcher  turns  him  now  from  these 
earth-born  lights  and  fixes  his  steadfast  gaze  upon  the 
heavens.  There  will  he  look  for  the  harbingers  of  the 
dawn.     He  watches  the  constellations,  but  they  give 


Christ  the  Hope  of  the  Ages  ii 

him  no  presage  of  the  daybreak  for  which  he  longs. 
Meteors  flash  in  sudden  brilliance  athwart  the  sky,  but 
their  light  illumines  the  darkness  but  a  moment,  and  gives 
no  promise  of  sunrise.  At  last,  as  he  scans  the  far  eastern 
horizon,  his  heart  leaps  up  wdth  hope.  One  of  the  four 
morning  stars  has  risen.  It  is  the  herald  of  the  dawn. 
The  watcher  rejoices,  for  he  knows  that  sunrise  is  near. 

That  eager  watcher,  my  brethren,  is  man.  Through 
the  long  night  of  ages — how  many  we  cannot  tell — he 
watched  for  the  dawn,  for  the  light  which  should  guide 
his  steps  to  the  home,  the  heavenly  home,  for  which 
his  heart  instinctively  yearned.  It  was  dark.  He 
could  not  see  his  way.  But  the  day  would  dawn.  He 
knew  it.  He  felt  it.  It  was  a  conviction  wrought  into 
his  soul.  He  could  not  tell  when  or  whence.  But  none 
the  less  he  looked  for  it,  watched  for  it,  prayed  for  it, 
turned  tliis  way  and  that,  seeking  some  sign  of  its  ap- 
proach. 

Behind  and  beneath  all  the  grotesque  forms  which 
rehgion  has  taken  among  the  various  families  of  the 
earth,  and  in  the  successive  ages  of  history,  has  been  the 
common  instinct  of  faith,  the  groping  after  God  and 
immortality,  for,  as  the  son  of  Sirach  says,  "  God  hath  set 
eternity  in  his  heart." 

And  so  man  has  been  as  one  watching  for  the  morning. 
Again  and  again  he  has  fancied  he  saw  the  light  of  ap- 
proaching day,  as  this  or  that  form  of  religion  or  of 
philosophy  has  flashed  its  hght  before  his  eager  eyes. 
But  these  lights  have  proved  delusive  and  disappoint- 
ing— like  the  will-o'-the-wisp  in  the  valley — the  exhala- 
tion of  man's  own  vain  imaginations,  as  in  the  mytholo- 
gies of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  before  them  the 
Egyptians.    Even  the  system  of  Zoroaster,  free  though 


12  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

it  was  from  idolatrous  elements,  was  only  a  meteor-light 
that  gave  but  a  momentary  gleam  in  the  darkness.  And 
the  great  systems  of  philosophy,  especially  those  of 
Plato  and  Zeno,  beautiful  as  they  were,  glowing  with 
noble  aspirations — illuminating  the  gloom  of  the  an- 
cient world  of  thought,  like  those  northern  lights  in  the 
arctic  circle  of  which  Nansen  speaks  with  such  enthu- 
siasm— after  all,  their  brightness  was  not  enduring: 
presently  they  began  to  fade,  and  man  felt  that  they 
were  not  the  harbingers  of  the  dawn  for  which  he  longed. 
"  I  know  not  how  it  is,"  exclaimed  the  greatest  of  Roman 
orators,  speaking  of  Plato's  splendid  argument  for  the 
immortahty  of  the  soul,  "  while  I  read  it  I  assent  to  it, 
I  am  convinced ;  but  when  I  lay  the  book  down  all  that 
assent  vanishes."  As  to  the  system  of  Buddha,  which 
has  unquestionably  exercised  a  highly  beneficent  in- 
fluence over  large  portions  of  the  globe,  its  light  has 
been  only  like  that  of  one  of  the  constellations  of  the 
midnight  winter  sky — it  has  had  within  it  no  promise  or 
potency  of  a  future  life,  no  hope  of  immortahty.  It  has 
given  the  anxious  heart  of  man  no  message  of  the  ap- 
proach of  sunrise. 

It  is  not  until  we  come  to  the  rehgion  of  the  Jews  that 
we  see  the  true  morning  star  that  heralded  to  man  the 
coming  day.  Their  sacred  books — the  scriptures  of 
the  Old  Testament — contain  a  light  which  shines  in  no 
other  scriptures  of  the  various  tribes  of  mankind.  It  is 
a  light  from  above — no  exhalation  from  the  perverted 
imaginations  of  men,  no  mere  upflashing  of  brilliant 
speculations  or  noble  aspirations  of  the  human  heart, 
but  a  star  set  in  the  sky  by  the  hand  of  the  Maker  of  all 
things,  whose  light,  dim  at  first,  waxes  brighter  as  the 
ages  advance,  shining  through  a  long  line  of  prophets 


Christ  the  Hope  of  the  Ages  13 

and  inspired  men  till  at  length  it  ushers  in  the  light  of 
day,  and  is  lost  in  the  glory  of  the  sunrise. 

Those  who  saw  the  hght  of  this  bright  morning  star 
were  few  at  first.  For  ages  only  one  people,  and  they 
small  and  feeble,  beheld  it.  But  them  it  inspired  with 
an  inextinguishable  hope.  The  Jews  in  the  ancient 
world  were  a  people  apart  from  all  other  peoples.  They 
have  had  a  history  more  wonderful  than  any  other. 
Few  and  feeble,  they  were  again  and  again  conquered, 
subjugated,  carried  into  captivity;  but  they  survived 
all  disasters.  They  could  not  be  extirpated.  Their 
conquerors  perished  while  they  continued  to  Uve.  Em- 
pire after  empire  rose  and  fell — Egypt,  Assyria,  Babylon, 
Persia,  Greece — but  the  Jewish  people  remained,  as  if 
by  a  divine  decree  they  had  been  made  indestructible. 
And  through  all  these  changes  and  storms  of  a  millen- 
nium and  a  half  of  history  they  guarded  as  a  sacred  de- 
posit— as  the  very  Ark  of  the  Covenant — the  hope  which 
had  been  kindled  in  their  hearts  by  revelation  from  on 
high.  Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  their  literature — 
this  book  we  call  the  Old  Testament — than  the  hopeful 
spirit  which  it  enshrines — that  trust  in  Jehovah,  that 
sure  confidence  of  the  dawn  of  a  brighter  day,  that  ex- 
pectation of  the  fulfilment  of  the  promises  made  unto 
the  fathers,  that  eager  watching  of  the  horizon  for  the 
first  kindlings  of  the  sunrise. 

At  length  the  hope  cherished  for  so  many  ages  ap- 
proached fulfilment.  The  light  of  prophecy,  which  had 
grown  clearer  and  brighter  with  the  advancing  centuries, 
reached  its  climax.  The  day  broke — the  dayspring 
from  on  high  visited  them.  The  Sun  of  Righteousness 
arose.  The  fulness  of  time  had  come.  The  Messiah 
was  born.     Life  and  Immortality  were  brought  to  light. 


14  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

And  as  when  the  day  breaks  in  the  Alps  the  loftiest 
summit  is  first  illuminated,  and  then  the  rosy  splendor 
flashes  from  snow-peak  to  snow-peak,  till  at  length  the 
whole  range  is  aglow  and  the  sun  bursts  in  his  full  glory 
upon  the  whole  world,  so  the  light  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  glory  of  God  which  the  birth  of  Jesus  revealed 
spread  froin  shore  to  shore,  from  nation  to  nation,  till  it 
began  to  fill  the  whole  earth.  It  could  not  be  confined 
to  the  Jews.  It  was  meant  for  mankind.  Their  Mes- 
siah was  "the  Desire  of  all  nations."  In  Him  was  real- 
ized the  Hope  of  the  world.  Man  began  to  see  in  Him 
the  fulfilment  of  his  most  cherished  longings.  The  hope 
and  the  yearning  of  many  ages,  of  which  the  religions 
of  the  many  families  of  the  earth  were  an  expression, 
spite  of  their  perversions  and  corruptions  of  truth,  found 
their  answer  in  the  religion  of  the  Nazarene. 

Thus  we  see  at  once  the  unity  and  the  diversity  of  the 
religions  of  mankind.  Christianity  is  the  one,  true,  and 
absolute  religion,  the  flower  and  fruit  of  Judaism,  re- 
vealed, God-given,  a  light  shining  down  from  the  opened 
heavens  upon  man,  not  the  mere  expression  of  man's 
effort  and  longing  to  rise  upward,  to  climb  to  a  higher 
sphere  to  which  he  feels  himself  drawn.  It  is  unique. 
It  stands  alone  and  unapproachable  by  any  other  sys- 
tem, and  yet,  in  a  certain  sense,  it  stands  related  to  all 
others  because  it  gathers  up  in  one  orb  of  pure  light  the 
rays  of  truth  which  all  others  contain.  Feeble  indeed 
these  rays  often  are,  broken,  distorted ;  but,  after  all,  the 
worst  forms  of  religion  do  contain,  or  once  did,  some 
glimmer  of  the  truth,  some  expression  of  man's  religious 
nature,  some  cry  of  the  soul  for  light,  some  groping  after 
God. 

To  one  distinguishing  feature  of  the  religion  of  Christ 


Christ  the  Hope  of  the  Ages  15 

our  thoughts  are  especially  turned  to-day.  It  is  the 
religion  of  hope.  Its  God  is  the  God  of  hope — in  sharp 
contrast  to  the  gods  of  the  heathen,  who  were  gods  of 
fear,  cruel,  vengeful  divinities,  standing  in  no  sympa- 
thetic relation  with  men.  This  note  of  hope  runs 
through  the  whole  music  of  the  gospel.  It  is  its  most 
striking  feature.  "Whatsoever  things  were  written 
aforetime,"  writes  the  Apostle,  "were  written  for  our 
learning,  that  we  through  patience  and  comfort  of  the 
Scriptures  might  have  hope."  The  Sacred  Scriptures 
were  the  basis  and  ground  of  hope.  They  had  breathed 
an  undying  hope  into  the  hearts  of  forty  generations  of 
the  Jewish  people.  And  more  than  fifty  generations  of 
Christians  have  found  a  hope  far  clearer,  far  brighter, 
far  more  inspiring  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. The  Church  enshrines  this  thought  in  her  Collect 
for  this  second  Sunday  in  Advent,  wherein  she  teaches 
us  that  by  reading,  marking,  learning,  and  inwardly 
digesting  the  Holy  Scriptures  we  shall  be  able  to  em- 
brace and  ever  hold  fast  that  blessed  hope  which  God  has 
given  us  in  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

My  brethren,  what  I  have  been  saying  of  the  race  is 
even  more  abundantly  true  of  the  individual  man.  He 
feels  within  him  a  profound  yearning  for  a  light  that 
shall  show  Mm  the  path  that  leads  to  his  true  destiny, 
to  his  better  home,  and  he  watches  for  it  as  for  the  morn- 
ing, Happy  he  who  has  at  last  recognized  the  bright  and 
morning  star  that  betokens  the  sunrise  of  the  higher 
sphere — the  breaking  of  the  light  of  an  immortal  hope 
upon  the  soul.  To  such  a  man  comes  the  message  of 
the  Apostle  in  our  text :  "  Now  the  God  of  hope  fill  you 
with  all  joy  and  peace  in  believing,  that  ye  may  abound 
in  hope,  through  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 


1 6  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

What  an  aspiration,  what  a  prayer  is  this!     Let  us 
each  one  make  it  our  own  to-day,  and  let  the  faith  that 
it  expresses  be  ours  as  well.     Christians,  our  God  is  "  the 
God  of  hope,"  not  of  gloom,  not  of  doubt,  not  of  fear. 
What  do  we  then.  His  children,  with  our  anxiety  and  our 
care  and  our  depression?     "We  have  not  received  the 
spirit  of  bondage  again  to  fear,  but  the  Spirit  of  adoption 
whereby  we  cry,  'Abba,  Father.'"     "We  are  the  chil- 
dren of  God" ;  "  and  if  children,  then  heirs,  heirs  of  God 
and  joint  heirs  with  Jesus  Christ."     He  has  "  begotten  us 
again  to  a  lively  hope  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ 
from  the  dead,  to  an  inheritance  incorruptible  and  un- 
defiled,  and  that  fadeth  not  away,  reserved  in  heaven 
for  us."     Our  Lord  calls  His  disciples  the  children  of 
the  Resurrection.     St.  Paul  exclaims:  "Ye  are  all  the 
children  of  light,  and  the  children  of  the  day :  we  are  not 
of  the  night,  nor  of  darkness."     And  "God,  who  com- 
manded the  light  to  shine  out  of  darkness,  hath  shined 
in  our  hearts  to  give  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ." 

Dearly  beloved  in  the  Lord,  if  such  are  our  privileges, 
if  such  has  been  our  experience  even  in  a  very  limited 
degree,  then  the  attitude  that  becomes  us  is  one  of  joyful 
thanksgiving  and  expectant  hope,  and  it  seems  to  me 
one  of  the  most  important  uses  of  the  Advent  season  is 
to  inspire  us  with  the  spirit  of  Christian  joyfulness  and 
hopefulness.  "Now  the  God  of  hope  fill  you  with  all 
joy  and  peace  in  believing."  We  dishonor  our  Lord  by 
yielding  to  doubt  and  fear  and  a  sense  of  uncertainty 
and  insecurity.  He  calls  us  to  believe  in  Him,  to  trust 
Him,  to  cast  all  our  care  on  Him,  to  rest  in  the  assur- 
ance of  His  love  and  thought  for  us. 

Here  in  His  holy  sacrament  He  has  given  us  "  pledges 


Christ  the  Hope  of  the  Ages  17 

of  His  love,"  visible  signs  and  seals  of  His  grace,  a  per- 
petual witness  of  His  good  will  to  us.  It  is  the  Eucha- 
rist, the  great  act  of  adoring  thanksgiving  "  for  the  re- 
demption of  the  world  by  the  death  and  passion  of  our 
Saviour  Christ."  These  "holy  mysteries"  are  ordained 
for  a  continual  remembrance  of  His  death.  We  make 
here  the  great  Memorial  our  Lord  commanded  us  to 
make,  "  having  in  remembrance  His  blessed  passion  and 
precious  death,  His  mighty  resurrection  and  glorious 
ascension." 

It  is  on  these  tremendous  facts  of  redemption  that  the 
hope  of  the  world  reposes.  The  wondrous  Cross  stands 
revealed  in  this  blessed  sacrament.  The  "  one  oblation  " 
there  made,  "the  full,  perfect,  and  sufficient  sacrifice", 
for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world,  is  exhibited  to  faith. 
The  Crucified  is  our  hope,  our  peace,  our  refuge.  His 
Body  and  Blood  will  "preserve  our  body  and  soul  unto 
everlasting  life." 

"In  the  cross  of  Christ  I  glory, 
Towering  o'er  the  wrecks  of  time; 

AH  the  Ught  of  sacred  story- 
Gathers  round  its  head  sublime." 

Brethren,  let  us  turn  to  Him,  crucified  for  us,  in  faith 
and  love.  Let  us  fix  the  eyes  of  our  souls  upon  Him.  Let 
us  believe  in  Him.  So  shall  we  be  "justified  by  faith,", 
and  being  justified  we  shall "  have  peace  with  God,"  yea, 
we  shall  be  filled  "with  joy  and  peace  in  beheving." 
So  shall  we  reahze  the  aspiration  of  the  Apostle — we 
shall  "aboimd  in  hope  " :  the  hope  of  pardon;  the  hope  of 
eternal  fife ;  the  hope  of  coming  off  conquerors  and  more 
than  conquerors  over  sin  and  sorrow  and  death;  the  hope 
of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  wherein  dweUeth 
righteousness;  the  hope  of  the  resurrection  when  this 


1 8  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

corruptible  body  shall  put  on  incorruption,  this  mortal 
immortality;  the  hope  of  the  dawn  of  a  morning  when 
the  shadows  shall  flee  away,  when  there  shall  be  no  more 
pain,  when  all  tears  shall  be  wiped  away  by  God  Himself 
and  when  those  "angel  faces"  shall  smile  again  which 
we  "have  loved  long  since  and  lost  awhile." 

O  Christian,  what  a  hope  is  thine!  How  blessed, 
how  glorious ! — not  like  the  hopes  of  this  changing  world, 
fleeting,  unsubstantial,  but  as  firm  and  unchangeable  as 
the  Rock  of  Ages ;  a  hope  which  will  be  as  an  "  anchor 
of  the  soul,  sure  and  steadfast";  a  hope  "full  of  im- 
mortality," because  Christ  HimseK  is  our  Hope — "  Christ 
in  us,  the  Hope  of  glory." 


THE  HARVEST  OF  THE  GREAT  DAY 

FOR  THE  THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT 

"  We  must  all  appear  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ;  that  e  ver 
one  may  receive  the  things  done  in  his  body,  according  to  that 
he  hath  done,  whether  it  be  good  or  bad." — II.  Cor.  v.  10. 

The  future  judgment  to  wliich  the  Advent  season 
points  with  warning  and  unerring  finger  is  a  solemn  and 
tremendous  reahty,  which  ought  to  have  place  in  the 
thoughts  of  every  man,  which  ought  indeed  to  form,  so 
to  speak,  the  background  of  every  hfe. 

We  who  speak  as  the  ministers  of  Christ  consider  it  of 
course  in  its  Christian  aspect.  Yet  it  is  well  to  remem- 
ber that  it  is  not  a  truth  peculiar  to  Christianity.  It 
belongs  to  natural  religion.  It  is  one  of  the  oldest  arti- 
cles in  the  religious  creeds  of  mankind  in  all  ages.  Plato 
says  the  future  judgment  is  by  no  means  to  be  avoided. 
In  his  Republic  occurs  the  following  passage:  "Know 
assuredly,  O  Socrates,  that  when  a  man  thinks  he  is 
near  his  end,  fear  enters  into  him,  and  anxiety  about 
things  which  before  gave  him  no  concern.  For  the  stories 
told  of  those  in  Hades — how  the  man  who  has  here  done 
wrong  must  there  suffer  the  penalty — once  laughed  at 
then  surely  torture  his  soul,  lest  they  be  true."  Here 
we  have  a  glimpse  of  the  conscience  of  the  ancient 
world  in  lands  into  which  the  Hebrew  conceptions  of 
retribution  had  not  penetrated.    And  it  shows  that 

19 


20  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

though  every  leaf  of  the  Bible  were  scattered  to  the 
winds,  and  its  testimony  erased  from  the  memory  of 
men,  the  expectation  of  a  future  judgment  would  re- 
main indelibly  engraven  on  the  history  of  human  thought, 
part  of  the  universal  belief  of  the  race. 

Moreover,  this  belief  in  a  judgment  to  come  rests  upon 
foundations  of  reason  and  conscience  which  are  as  valid 
to-day  as  they  ever  were.  When  Kepler  and  other 
astronomers  declared  their  belief  in  the  existence  of  a 
hitherto  undiscovered  planet,  because  "it  was  wanting 
to  complete  the  symmetry  of  the  solar  system  as  indi- 
cated by  a  certain  law  of  progression  in  the  planetary 
distances,"  they  did  not  build  their  faith  on  surer 
grounds  than  do  those  thinkers  who  predict  a  future 
judgment  because  the  harmony  of  God's  moral  gov- 
ernment demands  it.  The  laws  of  the  physical  universe, 
compared  with  the  facts  of  astronomy,  rendered  it  a 
mathematical  certainty  that  in  a  certain  quarter  of 
the  heavens  a  certain  star  (afterwards  discovered,  Jan. 
1,  1800,  by  Piazzi)  must  exist.  The  harmony  of  the 
physical  cosmos  demanded  it.  Even  so,  the  laws  of 
the  moral  universe — the  eternal  principles  of  truth  and 
righteousness  and  justice — render  it  equally  certain, 
independent  of  revelation,  that  a  throne  of  judgment 
will  one  day  be  revealed.  The  harmony  of  the  moral 
universe  demands  it.  It  is  the  only  solution  of  many  a 
dark  problem  of  wrong  triumphant,  of  innocence  con- 
demned, of  suffering  without  guilt,  of  guilt  without  suf- 
fering, of  inequalities  and  disorder  and  injustice  per- 
mitted and  unredressed.  It  is  the  only  answer  to  that 
philosophy  of  despair  which  has  dominated  so  many 
minds  in  our  time.  It  is  the  only  antidote  for  that 
frenzy  of  Nihihsm  and  Anarchy  which  is  born  of  an 


The  Harvest  of  the  Great  Day  2 1 

intolerable  sense  of  wrong,  of  suffering,  of  injustice,  for 
which  the  present  social  order  appears  to  offer  no  re- 
dress or  remedy.  Yes,  let  the  infidel  and  the  scoffer, 
who  rail  or  sneer  at  the  teaching  of  the  Bible,  take  note 
of  this!  Though  you  tear  up  the  Bible  and  fling  its 
fragments  to  the  winds,  the  testimony  of  reason  re- 
mains; the  witness  of  conscience  remains;  the  record 
of  man's  moral  nature  remains;  and,  until  they  are 
obliterated,  the  certain  fearful  looking-for  of  a  retribu- 
tive judgment  beyond  this  mortal  life  will  remain  fixed 
and  indelible. 

But  I  turn  from  such  considerations  as  to  the  founda- 
tion in  reason  for  the  belief  in  a  future  judgment,  and 
ask  you  to  reflect  upon  the  specific  statement  made 
here  by  the  great  Apostle  relative  to  the  nature  of 
that  judgment.  There  is  an  error,  however,  made  by 
our  translators  in  their  rendering  of  the  Apostle's  words 
which  quite  obscures  the  point  to  which  it  is  my  pur- 
pose to  invite  attention.  What  St.  Paul  really  says 
is  not,  "  We  must  all  appear  before  the  judgment-seat 
of  Christ,"  but  this:  "We  must  all  be  made  manifest 
before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ." 

That  is  to  say,  the  judgment  of  the  great  day  wiH  put 
into  operation  a  revealing  process  which  will  unfold 
every  man's  real  character.  It  is  not  merely  that  we 
must  aU  stand  at  that  great  bar  of  judgment,  but  we 
must  all  stand  there  revealed  in  our  true  character; 
"made  manifest"  before  angels  and  men  for  just  what 
we  really  are;  our  innermost  being  exposed  to  view; 
our  secret  souls  set  in  the  light;  all  shams  and  hypoc- 
risies and  disguises  stripped  off,  and  the  hidden  man  of 
the  heart  uncovered. 

Now  I  ask  you  to  observe  that  this  great  teacher 


22  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

and  apostle  of  Christianity,  to  whose  labors  Europe  was 
chiefly  indebted  for  the  knowledge  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, makes  the  whole  drama  of  the  judgment  turn 
upon  this  revealing  process  which  will  be  applied  to  each 
human  soul.  Everywhere  in  the  New  Testament,  both 
by  Christ  and  by  His  Apostles,  it  is  taught  that  there  will 
be  a  separation  into  two  great  classes  at  the  judgment, 
and  that  this  separation  will  determine  the  sentence  of 
retribution  or  of  reward  that  will  then  be  pronounced. 
But  here  it  is  made  plain  that  the  separation  will  be 
determined  by  the  revelation  which  will  first  be  made 
of  the  inner  nature,  the  true  character,  of  each  individual 
who  is  summoned  to  judgment. 

There  will  be  nothing  arbitrary,  then,  about  the  pro- 
ceedings and  the  findings  of  that  great  arraignment  and 
sentence  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ.  In  each 
case  the  verdict  and  the  judgment  will  depend  upon  the 
revelation  that  will  be  made  of  the  man's  real  self. 
Destiny  will  be  the  consequent  and  the  result  of  charac- 
ter. The  question  will  not  be,  What  is  the  man's  creed? 
but,  What  is  he?  Let  him  be  tested  by  the  X-rays  of 
impartial  truth,  and  let  him  be  made  manifest  just  as  he 
is  in  his  inner  nature, — just  as  God  sees  him.  If  his 
creed  has  not  purified  his  heart  and  keyed  his  soul  to  the 
spirit  and  the  fife  of  the  Christ  he  has  professed  to  follow, 
it  will  not  avail  him  in  the  judgment.  "  Many  will  say 
unto  Me  in  that  day.  Lord,  Lord,,  have  we  not  prophe- 
sied in  Thy  name,  and  in  Thy  name  have  cast  out  devils, 
and  in  Thy  name  done  many  wonderful  works?  And  then 
will  I  profess  unto  them,  I  never  knew  you :  depart  from 
Me,  ye  that  work  iniquity !  "  A  man  might  conceivably 
be  a  great  theologian  like  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  'Angeli- 
cal Doctor,'  or  a  great  reformer  like  Martin  Luther, 


The  Harvest  of  the  Great  Day  23 

or  a  great  preacher  like  George  Whitefield,  or  a  great 
philanthropist  like  John  Howard,  or  a  great  missionary 
like  Francis  Xavier,  but  unless  his  faith  had  become  a 
transforming  force  in  his  affections,  in  his  life,  in  his 
character,  all  his  zeal  and  his  activity  and  his  power 
would  avail  him  nothing  in  the  judgment.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  experience  abundantly  shows  that  there  is 
no  such  instrument  for  forming  character  on  the  lines 
of  righteousness,  justice,  purity,  and  love  as  the  Chris- 
tian faith  honestly  accepted  and  held.  Still,  we  must 
never  forget  that  the  supreme  test  at  the  day  of  judg- 
ment will  not  be,  What  creed  does  the  man  profess?  but. 
What  character  has  his  creed  produced  in  him?  Has 
the  Christian  creed  been  so  appropriated,  so  assimilated, 
that  the  man's  soul  has  become  a  Christian  soul,  his 
life  a  Christian  life?  That  is  what  will  be  made  plain 
when  the  revealing  process  is  appHed  to  every  one  of  us 
in  the  great  day,  and  every  one  shall  be  made  manifest 
before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ. 

Looked  at  in  this  light  the  final  judgment  is  seen  to 
be  the  natural  culmination  of  the  process  of  life  and  con- 
duct in  this  present  world.  Life  is  opportunity,  and 
the  judgment  will  declare  what  use  each  man  has  made 
of  his  opportunity.  Life  is  probation,  and  the  judg- 
ment will  register  and  announce  the  results  of  probation. 
Life  is  the  seed-plot  of  character,  and  the  judgment  is 
the  reaping  of  the  harvest. 

We  may  recall  in  this  connection  the  words  of  Clirist 
in  the  Parable  of  the  Tares.  The  householder  said  to 
his  servants:  "  Let  the  tares  and  the  wheat  grow  together 
until  the  harvest;  and  in  the  time  of  the  harvest  I  will 
say  to  the  reapers,  Gather  ye  together  first  the  tares, 
and  bind  them  in  bundles  to  burn  them-    but  gather 


24  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

the  wheat  into  my  barn."  Now  in  His  exposition  of  the 
parable  our  Lord  said,  "  The  harvest  is  the  end  of  the 
world,  and  the  readers  are  the  angels^ 

Could  the  solemn  import  of  human  life  be  more  strik- 
ingly exhibited?  The  judgment  is  but  the  reaping  of 
the  harvest  which  life  has  grown  and  ripened.  The 
tares  will  then  be  burned  and  the  wheat  gathered  into 
the  garner,  but  the  sowing  of  the  seed,  the  cultivation  of 
the  crop,  the  ripening  of  the  harvest,  are  all  done  here 
and  now,  in  this  mortal  life.  It  is  only  the  reaping  that 
takes  place  in  the  great  day  of  judgment.  It  is  our 
daily  life,  then,  men  and  brethren,  that  determines  our 
destiny.  We  are  sowing  the  seed,  we  are  preparing  the 
harvest  day  by  day,  hour  by  hour.  When  the  harvest 
of  life  is  ready  for  the  sickle,  whether  it  be  good  or 
whether  it  be  bad,  it  will  be  our  harvest,  it  will  be  our 
own  husbandry.  And  so  we  shall  have  ourselves  pre- 
pared the  judgment  which  the  great  day  wiU  declare. 

All  this  is  in  harmony  with  that  great  law  enunciated 
by  the  Apostle:  "Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall 
he  also  reap."  It  has  its  application  and  its  fulfilment 
in  this  life;  and  most  impressive  it  is,  most  salutary  as 
a  warning  against  vice,  when  we  see  the  drunkard  and 
the  voluptuary  reaping  in  their  own  bodies  the  awful 
harvest  of  their  sin.  But  it  has  a  still  more  solemn 
meaning,  a  more  far-reaching  significance,  when  we 
project  the  consequences  of  this  law  of  sowing  and  reap- 
ing into  the  final  issues  which  the  judgment-day  is  to 
announce  —  when  we  consider  the  ungodly  man  and 
the  sinner  at  that  dread  bar  of  unswerving  justice, 
trembling  at  the  sentence  of  the  Judge,  and  remember 
that  this,  too,  is  an  instance  of  that  same  eternal  law, 
and  that  the  judgment  we  hear  is  only  the  register  of 


The  Harvest  of  the  Great  Day  25 

the  harvest  of  life :  "  He  that  soweth  to  the  flesh  shall  of 
the  flesh  reap  corruption.'' 

Men  and  brethren,  what  harvest  are  you  preparing 
for  the  reapers  in  the  great  day  ?  To  answer  that  ques- 
tion it  is  only  necessary  to  ascertain  what  seed  you  are 
sowing.  Are  you  sowing  to  the  flesh,  or  are  you  sowing 
to  the  Spirit? 

I  need  not  say — conscience  surely  proclaims  it  trum- 
pet-tongued — that  whoever  is  cherishing  in  his  life  any 
secret  vice  is  preparing  for  himself  a  harvest  of  shame 
and  everlasting  contempt.  His  vice  is  eating  into  his 
very  soul,  corrupting  the  springs  of  his  being,  becoming 
the  permanent  bias  and  texture  of  his  nature.  The  un- 
clean man  is  sowing  to  the  flesh,  and  of  the  flesh  he  shall 
reap  corruption.  By  and  by  he  will  be  vitally  and 
essentially  corrupt.  And  when  the  harvest  of  his  un- 
cleanness  is  fully  ripe,  the  judgment  of  the  great  day  will 
have  no  more  terrible  penalty  than  this:  "He  that  is 
filthy,  let  him  be  filthy  still." 

Ah,  if  perchance  I  should  speak  to  any  man  or  woman 
who  is  sowing  such  seed  as  this,  would  God  I  could 
awaken  you  to  your  awful  danger,  that  you  might  cry 
out  in  anguish  of  soul  to  the  Saviour  of  sinners,  "  Lord, 
save,  or  I  perish!" 

It  ought  to  be  equally  plain  that  whoever  is  in  bond- 
age to  covetousness,  giving  his  whole  soul  and  energy 
to  making  money,  making  haste  to  be  rich,  worshipping 
the  golden  calf, — such  a  man  is  sowing  the  seed  of  a  bitter 
harvest,  not  only  because  of  the  uncertainty  of  riches, 
not  only  because  of  the  unsatisfying  nature  of  this  world 's 
wealth,  not  only  because  riches  take  to  themselves 
wings  and  fly  away,  but  because  covetousness  is  idolatry; 
covetousness  makes  gold  its  god;  covetousness  steals 


26  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

the  heart  from  its  Heavenly  Father.  And  then  covetous- 
ness  contracts  and  degrades  the  soul,  dwarfs  all  its 
higher  powers,  and  obliterates  the  image  of  God.  Ah, 
when  such  a  man  is  made  manifest  before  the  judgment- 
seat  of  Christ,  no  act  of  divine  retribution  will  be  neces- 
sary. He  will  carry  his  eternal  judgment  written  in  his 
own  forehead,  in  his  own  miserable,  miserly  soul.  From 
such  a  bitter  harvest  God  in  His  mercy  save  us  all! 

It  may  not  be  so  obvious  what  is  the  character  of  the 
harvest  they  are  preparing  who  are  simply  absorbed  in 
one  way  or  another  with  this  present  world.  They  are 
lovers  of  pleasure,  perhaps,  but  not  of  vicious  pleasure. 
They  are  up  to  the  neck  in  business,  or  in  politics,  or  in 
social  engagements,  yet  on  the  whole  not  people  of  bad 
principles.  They  are  simply  wholly  occupied  with  the 
world  that  appeals  to  the  senses,  or  to  the  imagination, 
or  to  the  intellect.  The  unseen  world  has  no  substantial 
reality  for  them.  Their  relation  to  God  does  not  give 
them  much  concern.  They  have  no  deep  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility to  God.  They  govern  their  lives  by  worldly 
principles.  They  have  no  sense  of  being  stewards  who 
must  give  account  of  their  talents,  of  their  means,  of 
their  influence,  of  their  opportunities.  And  so,  though 
they  may  take  a  dilettante  interest  in  certain  forms  of 
philanthropy,  they  are  strangers  to  the  principle  of  self- 
sacrifice,  which  alone  can  glorify  human  nature. 

What  then,  after  all,  can  we  say  of  such  persons  but 
that  they  are  sowing  to  the  flesh,  and  of  the  flesh  must 
infallibly  reap  corruption?  The  higher  relations  of  man, 
his  nobler  destiny,  his  more  exalted  vocation  as  a  child 
of  God,  as  a  servant  and  steward  of  God,  as  a  co-laborer 
with  God  in  the  uplifting  of  the  human  race — all  this 
is  ignored  by  them.     All  their,,,  sowing  is  of  seed  +hat 


The  Harvest  of  the  Great  Day  27 

promises  a  temporal  harvest  —  pleasure,  knowledge, 
aesthetic  enjoyment,  intellectual  culture.  And  so  they 
are  preparing  for  the  reapers  in  the  great  day  a  harvest 
of  leaves, 

"No  garnered  sheaves 
Of  life's  full-ripened  grain. 
They  reap,  'mid  toil  and  pain, 
Nothing  but  leaves. 

' '  And  shall  we  meet  the  Master  so, 
Bearing  our  wdthered  leaves? 
The  Saviour  looks  for  perfect  fruit, 
We  stand  before  Him  hvimbled,  mute, 
Waiting  the  words  He  breathes. 
Nothing  but  leaves!" 

From  all  such  vain  and  fruitless  lives  as  these  I  make 
appeal  in  God's  name  to  every  soul  in  this  assembly  to- 
day. Friends,  let  us  sow  to  the  Spirit,  that  we  may  reap 
hfe  everlasting.  Let  us  awake  to  the  deeper  meaning 
of  hfe,  as  a  sacred  trust  from  God,  as  a  field  of  opportu- 
nity for  doing  good.  Let  us  look  above  this  narrow 
sphere  of  time  to  the  larger,  nobler  horizon  of  Eternity. 
Let  us  recognize  in  Jesus  Christ  the  true  t3rpe  of  man- 
hood, the  perfect  ideal  of  life,  and  let  us  try  to  catch 
something  of  His  spirit  of  unselfish  love,  yes,  of  divine 
self-sacrifice.  Let  us  sow  deeds  of  kindness,  of  sympathy, 
of  generous  interest  in  our  fellow  men.  Let  us  cultivate 
the  worship  of  God,  obedience  to  His  commandments, 
trust  in  His  promises,  submission  to  His  will,  patience 
under  adversity,  meekness  under  provocation,  forgive- 
ness of  injuries.  Such  seed  as  these,  my  brethren,  will 
prepare  a  harvest  over  which  the  angel  reapers  will  re- 
joice in  the  great  day;  and  when  we  shall  be  made  mani- 


28  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

fest  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ,  by  the  mercy  of 
God  we  shall  not  be  ashamed. 

Once  more  let  the  solemn  words  of  the  great  Apostle 
sound  in  our  ears:  "We  must  all  be  made  manifest 
before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ."  Yes,  all  of  us 
without  distinction,  people  and  priest,  high  and  low,  rich 
and  poor,  believers  and  unbelievers — the  secret  souls  of 
all  and  each  shall  be  made  manifest  before  that  august 
tribunal.  He  will  "bring  every  work  into  judgment 
with  every  secret  thing."  He  will  bring  to  light  the 
hidden  things  of  darkness,  and  will  make  manifest  the 
counsels  of  the  hearts."  And  we  shall  be  judged  each 
one  of  us  according  to  his  works :  each  shall  "  receive  the 
things  done  in  his  body,  according  to  that  he  hath 
done,  whether  it  be  good  or  bad,"  not  because  those 
works  are  in  themselves  meritorious,  but  "because 
they  are  the  natural  expression  of  the  hidden  principle 
of  life." 

But  who  may  abide  the  day  of  His  coming?  And  who 
shall  stand  when  He  appeareth?  Who  dare  hope  that 
he  can  stand  such  a  searching  scrutiny,  such  a  fiery  and 
impartial  judgment?  Will  not  every  mouth  be  stopped, 
and  all  the  world  be  guilty,  before  God? 

Yes :  but  the  Gospel  of  Christ  has  revealed  the  way  of 
life  and  peace  whereby  every  penitent  sinner  may  have 
boldness  in  the  day  of  judgment.  They  who  have 
trusted  in  the  mercy  of  God  revealed  in  the  Cross,  they 
who  have  believed  on  the  name  of  the  Son  of  God,  and 
have  turned  to  Him  in  honest  contrition,  shall  not  come 
into  condemnation.  "  There  is  therefore  now  no  con- 
demnation to  them  which  are  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  walk 
not  after  the  flesh  hut  after  the  Spirit.". 


The  Harvest  of  the  Great  Day  29 

Such  as  these  will  indeed  at  best  be  found  full  of 
frailty  and  imperfection  in  the  revealing  light  of  that 
great  day;  but  that  light  will  also  show  that  their  faith 
in  Christ  has  been  a  purifying  influence  in  their  lives: 
it  will  make  it  manifest  that  they  have  been  so'wdng  to 
the  Spirit  and  not  to  the  flesh,  and  that  a  new  Ufe,  full 
of  the  promise  and  potency  of  immortality,  has  begun 
within  them.  The  angel  reapers  will  doubtless  find 
tares  in  their  lives,  but  there  will  be  wheat  also;  there 
\\all  be  a  harvest  of  faith  and  love  and  Christly  deeds 
ready  for  the  sickle. 


JUSTIFICATION    BY    FAITH— JUDGMENT 
ACCORDING  TO  WORKS 

FOR  THE  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  ADVENT 

;    ■  "And  now,  Lord,  what  is  my  hope?" 

Psalm  xxxix.  8  (Prayer  Book  Version). 

On  the  successive  Sundays  of  this  Advent  season  I 
have  been  trying,  in  faithful  reflection  of  the  Church's 
teaching,  to  impress  upon  your  minds,  first,  the  certainty 
and  solemnity  of  the  second  Advent  of  Christ;  next,  our 
responsibility  as  Christians  for  preparing  the  way  of  the 
Lord,  in  our  own  homes,  in  the  community,  in  the  great 
world;  and  then  the  character  of  the  final  judgment, 
as  first  of  all  a  revealing  process,  a  manifestation  of  the 
true  character  of  each  individual,  so  that  the  separation 
which  shall  accompany  it,  and  the  retribution  which 
shall  speedily  follow,  will  be  in  fact  the  register  of  the 
results  of  probation  in  each  case,  the  gathering  in  of  the 
harvest  of  life,  according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body, 
whether  they  be  good  or  whether  they  be  bad. 

To-day,  as  the  solemn  season  closes,  I  wish  to  con- 
sider and  answer  a  question  which  naturally  results  from 
these  discussions — a  question  which  must  force  itself  upon 
the  attention  of  every  one  who  has  given  any  serious 
thought  to  the  considerations  which  I  have  been  urging 
— ^the  question,  namely,  which  the  Psalmist  asks  in  my 
text,  "  And  now,  Lord,  what  is  my  hope  ?  ". 

30 


Justification  and  Judgment  31 

In  view  of  that  certain  and  inevitable  judgment;  in 
view  of  the  principle  of  responsibihty  which  (whether 
we  will  or  no,  whether  we  remember  it  or  no)  attaches 
to  human  life;  in  view  of  the  fact  that  in  that  great 
day  we  shall  reap  what  we  have  sown,  we  shall  be 
judged  according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body,  what 
is  our  dependence,  what  is  our  reliance,  what  is  our 
hope? 

If  every  man's  life,  his  inner  life  as  well  as  his  outer 
life — his  motives  and  affections,  as  well  as  his  acts — is 
to  be  subjected  to  the  searching  scrutiny  of  Him  unto 
whom  all  hearts  are  open,  all  desires  known,  and  from 
whom  no  secrets  are  hid, — what  will  be  his  hope  in  that 
great  day  of  trial?  If  the  standard  of  judgment  is  to  be 
a  man's  conduct;  if  his  destiny  is  to  be  finally  deter- 
mined according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body,  then 
what  hope  can  any  man  have  in  the  judgment?  Can 
he  hope  to  be  found  without  fault  before  God?  Can 
he  dare  set  up  a  claim  at  that  awful  bar  of  justice  that 
he  deserves  eternal  life?  Would  not  such  a  claim  shrivel 
like  pai-chment  before  the  fire,  in  the  reveaUng  light  of 
that  white  throne  of  judgment? 

It  is  the  same  old,  old  question  which  the  patriarch 
propounded  millenniums  ago:  "How  shall  man  be  just 
with  God?"  And  who  shall  gainsay  the  answer  which 
he  returned:  "If  I  justify  myself,  mine  own  mouth 
shall  condemn  me;  ...  if  I  wash  myself  with  snow- 
water and  make  my  hands  never  so  clean,  yet  shalt  Thou 
(0  God)  plunge  me  in  the  ditch,  and  mine  own  clothes 
shall  abhor  me.  For  He  is  not  a  man  as  I  am  that  I 
should  answer  Him,  and  we  should  come  together  in 
judgment." 

But  if  man  cannot  justify  himself   before   God;  if, 


32  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

when  weighed  in  the  balances  of  omniscient  justice, 
every  man  must  be  found  wanting,  then  who  can 
stand  in  the  judgment?  What  can  be  the  hope  of 
any  of  us  in  that  day?  In  the  solemn  words  of  the 
Dies  Irce: 

"Wondrous  sound  the  trumpet  flingeth; 
Through  earth's  sepulchres  it  ringeth; 
All  before  the  throne  it  bringeth. 

"Death  is  struck,  and  nature  quaking, 
AU  creation  is  awaking, 
To  its  Judge  an  answer  making. 

"Lo!  the  Book  exactly  worded, 
Wherein  all  hath  been  recorded : 
Thence  shall  judgment  be  awarded. 

"When  the  Judge  His  seat  attaineth. 
And  each  hidden  deed  arraigneth, 
Nothing  unavenged  remaineth. 

"What  shall  I,  frail  man,  be  pleading? 
Who  for  me  be  interceding. 
When  the  just  are  mercy  needing?  " 

You  will  say,  this  last  stanza  suggests  the  answer. 
There  is  an  Intercessor;  there  is  an  Advocate  with 
God;  there  is  a  Mediator  between  man  and  God, 
the  Man  Christ  Jesus,  who  has  made  sacrifice  and 
propitiation  for  our  sins.  He  died,  the  just  for  the 
unjust,  and  made  atonement  for  sin.  He  has  opened  a 
fountain  for  sin  and  uncleanness.  He  has  blotted  out 
our  sins.  He  has  removed  them  as  far  from  us  as  the 
East  is  from  the  West.  And  therefore  we  may  have 
"boldness  in  the  day  of  judgment,"  as  the  Apostle 
declares.  To  the  question  of  the  text,  "What  is  my 
hope  f  "  every  man  who  Uves  and  trusts  in  Jesus  Christ 


Justification  and  Judgment  33 

may  answer  with  confidence :  "  He  is  my  hope,  His  Cross 
is  my  refuge.  I  will  put  His  Cross  between  me  and  my 
sins,  between  me  and  my  just  deserts,  between  me  and 
the  judgment  of  the  great  day." 

My  brethren,  it  is  a  true  answer.  This,  this  only  will 
be  our  hope  in  the'day  of  judgment — Christ  and  His  Cross; 
Christ  and  His  Atonement;  Christ  and  His  Intercession. 

But  if  so,  how  does  the  truth  stand,  that  we  shall  be 
judged  according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body,  whether 
they  be  good  or  bad?  Is  there  not  a  conflict  between 
the  two  statements?  Does  not  one  affirm  that  we  are 
justified  here,  and  shall  be  justified  at  the  great  day 
by  o\ir  faith  and  not  by  our  works?  And  does  not  the 
other  represent  that  we  can  be  justified  in  the  judgment 
only  by  our  works — by  the  deeds  done  in  the  body — 
and  not  by  our  faith? 

It  is  this  apparent  conflict  and  inconsistency  that  I 
earnestly  desire,  God  helping  me,  to  reconcile  this  morn- 
ing, so  that,  on  the  one  hand,  we  may  never  put  our 
trust  or  our  hope  of  justification  and  acceptance,  in  this 
life  or  in  the  next,  in  anything  save  in  Christ  our  Re- 
deemer, and,  on  the  other,  may  never  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  by  our  conduct  here  we  are  preparing  and  ma- 
turing the  harvest  which  we  shall  reap  in  the  final  judg- 
ment. 

I  think  I  may  be  able  to  make  my  thought  in  this 
matter  plain  to  you  by  taking  the  example  of  a  man  who, 
first  awakened  to  a  sense  of  the  guilt  and  penalty  of  sin, 
and  then  struggling  in  vain  to  free  Ifimself  from  his  bur- 
den by  his  o^\Ti  works,  by  fastings  and  penances  and 
self-mortifications,  at  last  found  peace  and  rest  in  the 
truth  of  salvation  through  faith  in  the  Son  of  God, 
without  merit  or  righteousness  of  his  own;  yet  lived 


34  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

henceforth  ever  as  in  the  sight  of  the  judgment  which 
would  be  rendered  to  every  man  according  to  the  deeds 
done  in  the  body.  I  refer  to  that  great  man  whose  pro- 
found and  intense  personal  religious  experience,  even 
more  than  his  masterful  genius,  gave  impulse  and  inspi- 
ration to  the  greatest  spiritual  movement  of  modern 
times,  I  mean  Martin  Luther. 

The  monk  of  Wittenberg  was  truly  the  child  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  as  such  was  deeply  imbued  with  the 
characteristic  thought  of  that  period,  an  "  intense  appre- 
hension of  the  Divine  Righteousness  and  of  its  inexora- 
ble demands."  St.  Anselm  made  this  thought  the  basis 
of  his  theology,  in  particular  of  his  philosophy  of  the 
Atonement,  in  the  "Cur  Deus  Homo."  St.  Bernard 
in  his  cloister  wrought  it  into  his  "  splendid  structure  of 
ideal  virtue."  The  architects  of  the  Middle  Ages  built 
it  into  those  glorious  cathedrals  which  are  the  expression 
in  stone  of  the  sense  of  reverence  and  awe  of  the  divine 
holiness.  Dante  gave  it  more  vivid  and  lurid,  if  not 
more  glorious,  utterance  in  his  great  epic,  of  which  the 
Inferno,  the  Purgatorio,  and  the  Paradiso  form  the  tri- 
logy, and  has  been  justly  named  in  a  unique  sense  "  the 
Poet  of  Righteousness."  Perhaps,  however,  it  may 
be  truly  said  that  a  disciple  of  St.  Francis,  Thomas  of 
Celano,  of  all  others  gave  most  effective  expression  to 
the  conception  of  the  divine  righteousness  and  the  inex- 
orable divine  judgment,  in  that  well-known  hymn  the 
Dies  Irce,  of  which  Goethe  has  made  such  grand  use  in  his 
Faust,  and  of  which  it  has  been  said,  "quot  sunt  verba, 
tot  tonitrua" — "it  has  as  many  thunders  as  words." 

"  Now  it  was  into  this  world  of  spiritual  terrors,"  says 
a  recent  writer,  "that  Luther  was  born,  and  he  was  in 
an  eminent  degree  the  legitimate  child  of  the  Middle 


Justification  and  Judgment  35 

Ages.  The  turning-point  in  his  history  is  that  the 
awful  visions  of  which  we  have  spoken,  the  dread  of 
the  divine  judgments,  brought  home  to  him  by  one 
of  the  solemn  accidents  of  life,  checked  him  in  a  career 
which  promised  all  worldly  prosperity,  and  drove  him 
into  a  monastery.  There,  as  he  tells  us,  he  was  driven 
almost  frantic  by  his  vivid  realization  of  the  divine 
righteousness  on  the  one  hand  and  of  his  own  in- 
capacity to  satisfy  it  on  the  other."  *  "  However 
irreprehensible  a  hfe,"  he  exclaims,  "I  have  lived  as 
a  monk,  I  felt  myself  before  God  a  sinner,  with  a 
most  restless  conscience,  and  I  could  not  be  confident 
that  He  was  appeased  by  my  satisfaction."  Long  he 
struggled  in  vain  to  free  himself  from  this  bondage  of 
fear  and  darkness.  But  at  last,  pondering  the  word  of 
God,  the  Ught  of  the  gospel  of  freedom  broke  in  upon 
him,  and  he  saw  that  God  had  set  forth  His  Son  to  be  a 
propitiation  for  sin,  and  that  whosoever  beheveth  on 
Him  is  pardoned  and  justified  before  God.  He  saw  that 
the  door  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  could  be  opened  only 
by  one  key,  even  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  St. 
Paul's  teaching  sank  deep  into  his  soul,  "We  are  justi- 
fied by  faith,  without  the  deeds  of  the  law."  "Christ 
is  the  end  of  the  law  for  righteousness  to  every  one  that 
beheveth."  "  Christ  is  made  unto  us  wisdom  and  right- 
eousness and  sanctification  and  redemption."  "By 
grace  are  ye  saved  through  faith,  and  that  not  of  your- 
selves, it  is  the  gift  of  God :  not  of  works,  lest  any  man 
should  boast."  "  To  him  that  worketh  not,  but  beheveth 
on  Him  that  justifieth  the  ungodly,  his  faith  is  counted 
for  righteousness."  And  so  the  gospel  of  free  grace,  free 
pardon,  free  justification,  burst  upon  Luther's  soul  in 
*  See  Dr.  Henry  Wace's  "Luther's  Primary  Works,"  p.  428. 


36  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

its  full-orbed  glory,  and  his  soul  was  filled  with  joy  and 
peace,  and  his  hps  with  praise. 

The  theology  of  the  mediaeval  Church  had  taught 
him  to  dwell  upon  the  Passion  of  Christ,  upon  the  ineffa- 
ble mystery  of  the  Atonement,  upon  the  awful  beauty 
and  glory  of  the  Cross.  Even  the  "  countless  masses  of 
the  later  Middle  Ages"  were  "so  many  confessions  of 
the  deep-felt  need  of  Atonement,"  "so  many  cries 
for  forgiveness  from  the  terror-stricken  consciences  of 
sinful  men  and  women."  Luther,  led  thus  to  the 
threshold  of  the  truth  of  God's  provision,  full,  free,  and 
final,  for  taking  away  sin,  now  went  boldly  and  gladly 
forward  to  grasp  the  gift  so  freely  offered.  The  scales 
had  fallen  from  his  eyes.  The  fetters  were  broken.  He 
was  free,  free  with  the  hberty,  wherewith  Christ  had 
made  him  free.  And  it  was  faith  which  had  done  all 
this  for  his  darkened,  fettered  soul! 

But  now  let  us  note  what  is  this  faith  to  which  Luther 
attributed  such  great  things.  It  is  no  mere  intellectual 
assent  to  a  theological  statement:  no  mere  mental  ac- 
ceptance of  the  gospel  as  true.  No :  it  is  the  motion  of 
the  whole  soul  to  Christ.  It  is  the  soul  laying  hold  of 
the  truth  and  promises  of  God.  "The  soul,"  he  says, 
"  which  cleaves  to  them  with  a  firm  faith  is  so  united  to 
them,  nay,  thoroughly  absorbed  by  them,  that  it  not 
only  partakes  in,  but  is  penetrated  and  saturated  by, 
aU  their  virtue.  For  if  the  touch  of  Christ  was  health, 
how  much  more  does  that  most  tender  spiritual  touch 
[of  faith]  .  .  .  communicate  to  the  soul  aU  that  belongs 
to  the  Word !  "  Again  he  says :  "  Faith  unites  the  soul  to 
Christ  as  the  wife  to  the  husband."  "  Human  marriages 
are  but  feeble  types  of  this  one  great  marriage."  In 
another  place  he  speaks  of  "  the  wedding-ring  of  faith.JJ 


Justification  and  Judgment  37 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  such  a  vital  principle  as  this  faith, 
as  Luther  understood  it,  could  not  be  other  than  a 
power-wheel  in  governing  and  guiding  a  man's  life. 
Its  connection  with  conduct  is  intimate  and  indissoluble. 
"The  spirit  of  faith,"  he  exclaims,  "applies  itself  with 
cheerfulness  and  zeal  to  restrain  and  repress  the  im- 
pulses of  the  lower  nature."  "Here  works  begin;  here 
a  man  must  not  take  his  ease;  here  he  must  give  heed  to 
exercise  his  body  by  fastings,  watchings,  labor,  and  other 
reasonable  discipline,  so  that  it  may  be  subdued  to  the 
Spirit."  "We  do  not  then  reject  good  works;  nay, 
we  embrace  them  and  teach  them  in  the  highest  degree." 
Luther  lays  much  stress  on  the  free,  joyful  spirit  in 
which  a  man  whose  soul  is  imbued  with  faith  will  apply 
himself  to  works  of  love  and  self-denial.  "Here,"  he 
exclaims,  "  is  the  truly  Christian  life,  here  is  faith  really 
working  by  love,  when  a  man  appUes  himself  with  joy 
and  love  to  the  works  of  that  freest  servitude,  in  which 
he  serves  others  voluntarily  and  for  naught."  Of  him- 
self he  says,  "I  will  therefore  give  myself  as  a  sort  of 
Christ  to  my  neighbor,  as  Christ  has  given  Himself  to 
me." 

Imagine  now  this  man  Martin  Luther  summoned  to 
the  judgment-seat  of  Christ.  He  hears  the  summons 
without  alarm.  He  approaches  without  trepidation. 
He  has  "boldness  in  the  day  of  judgment."  Why? 
What  is  his  hope?  Is  he  expecting  to  be  justified  before 
that  awful  bar  by  his  works?  No:  he  has  utterly  re- 
nounced such  a  hope  as  vain  and  delusive.  Upon  what, 
then,  does  he  build  his  hope?  Upon  the  word  and  prom- 
ise of  God ;  upon  the  sacrifice  and  atonement  of  Christ, 
in  which  through  faith  he  has  claimed  a  part.  Confident 
in  this  faith,  we  see  him  joining  in  the  great  Apostle's 


38  The  Gk)spel  in  the  Christian  Year 

challenge,  "Who  shall  lay  anything  to  the  charge  of 
God's  elect?  Who  is  he  that  condemneth?  .  ,  .  Who 
shall  separate  me  from  the  love  of  Christ?"  Yes,  he  is 
neither  ashamed  nor  afraid  to  meet  the  Judge,  for  he 
recognizes  in  Him  the  Redeemer,  who  suffered  for  his 
sins  and  who,  having  overcome  the  sharpness  of  death, 
opened  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  all  believers. 

But  will  he  not  be  judged  according  to  his  works, 
according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body?  Yes,  but  he 
will  not  be  saved  by  his  works.  That  is  quite  a  different 
thing.  It  is  not  said  eternal  life  wiU  be  the  reward  of 
his  works.  The  only  merits  that  can  avail  any  sinner  in 
that  solemn  hour  will  be  the  merits  of  Christ.  When 
the  great  Apostle,  the  blessed  and  glorious  Paul,  antici- 
pated that  hour,  he  prayed  that  he  might  be  found  in 
Christ,  not  having  his  own  righteousness,  but  the  right- 
eousness which  is  of  God,  by  faith.  What  is  affirmed  in 
Holy  Writ  is  that  the  judgment  of  final  award  will  be 
according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body.  There  will  be 
a  harmony  between  them.  They  will  be  in  accord. 
There  will  be  a  proportion  and  relation  between  them. 
If  Martin  Luther  is  saved,  he  will  be  saved  by  grace, 
through  faith.  But  the  final  judgment  in  his  favor 
wiU  at  the  same  time  be  "according  to  his  works." 

He  led,  as  we  beheve,  a  life  of  self-denying  labor  for 
the  love  of  God  and  of  his  fellow  men.  He  was  rich  in 
good  works.  He  abounded  in  the  fruits  of  charity.  And 
all  was  the  outgrowth  of  his  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
And  so  there  is  an  accord,  a  proportion,  a  harmony  be- 
tween the  final  award  of  eternal  life  given  him  in  the 
judgment,  and  his  works,  the  deeds  done  in  the  body. 

But  Martin  Luther  could  not,  St.  Paul  himself  could 
not,  claim  eternal  life  as  the  reward  of  his  good  works. 


Justification  and  Judgment  39 

One  sin,  one  flaw,  one  defect,  and  the  whole  structure 
of  self-righteousness,  the  whole  fabric  of  human  merit, 
collapses. 

You  see  then,  my  brethren,  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  justification  at  the  final  judgment  by  our  works,  or 
by  any  merits  of  our  own.  But  there  is  a  harmony 
between  the  eternal  award  and  the  life,  the  works,  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body.  And  so  all  appearance  of  con- 
flict or  contradiction  between  the  scriptural  doctrines  of 
grace  and  of  judgment  disappears.  On  the  contrary, 
there  is  the  completest  agreement.  For  the  faith  which 
unites  the  soul  with  Christ,  and  so  justifies,  is  naturally 
and  necessarily  the  source  and  fountain  of  good  works, 
works  of  love  and  mercy  and  self-denial,  freely,  joyfully 
done,  not  for  reward,  not  by  constraint,  not  in  the  vain 
attempt  to  build  up  a  structure  of  self -righteousness, 
but  out  of  gratitude  to  Him  who  has  loved  us  and  re- 
deemed us  to  God  by  His  blood.  One  word  tells  the  story 
of  such  a  life:  "The  love  of  Christ  constraineth  me." 
Hence  when  judgment  is  given  in  favor  of  the  penitent 
sinner,  whose  only  trust  is  in  the  merits  of  Christ,  and 
whose  hope  is  that  he  shall  be  saved  by  faith  in  Him, 
that  very  judgment  is  according  to  his  works:  for  his 
faith  will  have  borne  its  fruit;  it  will  have  purified  his 
heart;  it  will  have  given  a  new  purpose  and  a  new  direc- 
tion to  his  life. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  faith  itself  is  one  of  the 
works  most  acceptable  to  God.  Call  to  mind  the  answer 
of  Christ  when  men  asked  Him,  "  What  shall  we  do  that 
we  might  work  the  works  of  God?"  "Jesus  answered 
and  said  unto  them,  This  is  the  work  of  God,  that  ye  be- 
lieve on  Him  whom  He  hath  sent."  If,  therefore,  the  man 
who  has  not  believed  on  Him  whom  God  hath  sent  be 


40  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

condemned  in  the  judgment,  he  will  be  judged  accord- 
ing to  his  works.  And  so  indeed  our  Lord  declared  to 
Nicodemus :  "  He  thatbelievethonHim  is  not  condemned; 
but  he  that  believeth  not  is  condemned  already,  because 
he  hath  not  believed  on  the  name  of  the  only-begotten 
Son  of  God."  "  What  greater  rebellion,  impiety,  or  insult 
to  God  can  there  be,"  exclaims  Luther,  "than  not  to 
believe  His  promises?  What  else  is  this  but  to  make 
God  a  liar,  or  to  doubt  His  truth?  " 

May  I,  in  conclusion,  ask  every  soul  in  this  assembly 
without  exception  to  make  the  question  of  my  text  his 
own — "  And  now,  Lord,  what  is  my  hope  9  "  Ask  the  ques- 
tion as  in  the  presence  of  the  heart-searching  God.  Ask 
it  in  all  seriousness  and  solemnity;  for  eternity  hinges 
upon  it.  "  Lord,  what  is  my  hope  9  What  is  my  hope  9  " 
There  are  many  false  and  delusive  hopes.  There  is  only 
one  that  is  "as  an  anchor  of  the  soul  and  entereth  into 
that  within  the  veil.''  That  hope  is  in  Christ.  It  is 
built  on  faith  in  Him,  as  the  Redeemer  of  the  world,  as 
the  Saviour  of  sinners — a  faith  that  worketh  by  love  and 
purifieth  the  heart. 

Do  you  believe  on  the  name  of  the  Son  of  God?  Ah, 
this  is  the  work  of  God,  that  ye  believe  on  Him  whom 
He  hath  sent !  And  this  is  one  of  the  works  according 
to  which  every  man  and  woman  of  us  all  will  be  judged 
in  that  day. 

You  answer,  perhaps,  that  you  do  believe  on  Him,  It 
is  well ;  but  take  care  that  you  so  beheve  on  Him  that 
your  life  is  made  new  by  your  faith.  Take  care  that 
your  faith  is  that  vital  principle  which  unites  the  soul 
in  a  holy  bond  to  Christ.  Whether  you  shall  be  saved 
or  no  wiU  not  depend  upon  any  arbitrary  decree  of  the 
Judge,  but  upon  your  fitness  for  salvation.     We  may 


Justification  and  Judgment  41 

reverently  say  that  God  will  save  every  soul  that  can  be 
saved.  "As  I  live,  saith  the  Lord,  I  have  no  ^pleasure  in 
the  death  of  him  that  dieth."  "God,"  says  the  Apostle, 
"will  have  all  men  to  he  saved."  That  is  His  will.  But 
ah !  the  obstinacy  and  rebellion  of  men  ofttimes  defeats 
His  gracious  will.  "Ye  will  not  come  unto  Me,"  said 
Jesus,  "that  ye  might  have  life." 

Be  sure,  then,  that  every  soul  that  appears  before  that 
judgment-seat  with  even  the  germ  of  that  new  life  which 
is  the  earnest  of  immortality  will  be  saved.  So  it  was, 
we  may  suppose,  with  the  dying  thief.  His  had  been 
an  evil  life,  with  probably  Uttle  opportunity  and  httle 
light  to  lead  him  to  better  things;  but  when  on  the 
cross  he  opened  his  soul  to  the  light  and  put  forth  the 
hand  of  faith  and  grasped  the  Crucified  as  his  hope,  there 
came  a  change,  a  radical  change,  in  his  inner  man;  the 
dawn  of  a  new  life  broke ;  a  new  spirit  awoke  •^athin 
him:  and  so  the  gates  of  paradise  opened  to  him  as 
a  penitent  sinner,  fitted  for  salvation. 

This  we  may  thankfully  remember  for  our  comfort. 
But  shall  we  be  content  with  a  feeble  germ  of  that  new 
life,  when  it  might  be  as  a  tree  laden  with  rich  ripe  fruit? 
Will  you  be  satisfied  to  be  "scarcely  saved"?  to  be 
"saved  so  as  by  fire"?  to  be  saved  as  the  crew  of  the 
shipwrecked  vessel  at  Melita,  "  some  on  boards,  and  some 
on  broken  pieces  of  the  ship"?  Or  will  you  not  rather 
strive  to  have  "  an  abundant  entrance  "  into  the  eternal 
haven — like  a  gallant  ship  with  all  sail  set  coming  into 
harbor  in  triumph? 

Remember  that  there  will  be  vast  differences  among 
the  saved,  as  well  as  among  the  lost.  The  judgment 
and  award  of  that  great  day  will  be  in  due  proportion 
to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body.     Very  different  will  be 


42  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

the  reward  of  a  Paul  and  of  a  Luther,  and  that  of  the 
penitent  thief  or  of  the  Magdalen.  For  these  latter 
there  wiU  be  found  some  place  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ, 
but  for  those  there  will  be  a  crown  of  righteousness, 
a  crown  of  glory. 

Be  it  our  holy  ambition  not  merely  to  find  an  entrance, 
but  an  abundant  entrance,  into  His  kingdom,  and  to 
attain  that  fulness  of  salvation,  that  rich  reward,  that 
"exceeding  and  eternal  weight  of  glory"  which  will  be 
bestowed  upon  those  who  are  abundant  in  labors,  who 
are  rich  in  faith! 


A  LITTLE  CHILD  SHALL  LEAD  THEM 

FOR   CHRISTMAS    DAY 

"A  little  child  shall  lead  them." — Isaiah  xi.  6. 

The  Christian  world  presents  everywhere  to-day  a 
striking  fulfilment  of  this  prophetic  utterance  of  the 
ancient  Jewish  seer.  The  Festival  of  the  Little  Child 
is  celebrated  in  every  country  on  the  globe,  and  in  every 
important  group  of  islands  in  the  sea.  The  new-born 
Babe  of  Bethlehem  draws  the  hearts  and  thoughts  of 
countless  mjTiads  of  the  human  race  to  the  lowly  spot 
where  He  hes — in  the  manger,  among  the  beasts  of 
the  stall,  watched  and  tended  by  the  gentle,  holy, 
virgin-mother. 

What  a  procession  it  is  which  the  little  Child  leads 
to-day, — leads  back  over  the  long  centuries  to  the  land, 
the  little  land,  the  poor,  despised  land  of  Palestine,  the 
land  which  His  own  birth  has  made  great  and  wonder- 
ful and  holy!  Compare  it  for  a  moment  with  the  pro- 
cession which  three  millions  of  people  watched  and 
cheered  in  the  streets  of  London  at  the  Jubilee  of  Queen 
Victoria.  In  that  parade,  we  are  told,  "  there  marched 
British  subjects  from  North  and  South  America,  from 
Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  Austraha,  and  from  the 
islands  that,  starting  at  Trinidad,  circle  the  globe  from 
the  South  Atlantic  and  Caribbean  Sea,  through  the 
Mediterranean  to  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  down  through 

43 


44  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

the  South  Pacific  and  back  again,  past  the  Falkland 
Islands,  to  Jamaica  and  Trinidad." 

But  the  host  which  is  foUowing  the  little  Child  to 
Bethlehem  to-day  is  numbered  by  the  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions, is  gathered  out  of  all  lands  and  seas  upon  the 
globe,  and  embraces  subjects  of  every  king  and  queen, 
and  of  every  emperor  and  empress,  and  citizens  of 
every  republic  in  the  world.  No  race,  or  people,  or 
tongue,  scarce  any  tribe,  but  is  represented  in  this  host, 
which  sings  as  it  marches,  ^' Let  us  go  now  even  unto 
Bethlehem,  and  see  this  thing  which  is  come  to  pass,  which 
the  Lord  hath  made  known  to  us."  And  then  how  deep 
the  contrast  in  another  aspect.  That  was  a  mihtary 
pageant.  It  represented  the  imperial  power  of  a  great 
nation,  whose  navies  command  the  seas,  whose  con- 
quests have  been  effected  by  force  of  arms.  But  this 
countless  Christian  host,  which  we  contemplate  in 
thought  to-day,  is  marching  under  the  banner  of  "  Peace 
on  earth,  good  will  toward  men";  its  conquests  are  the 
victories  of  love;  it  represents  an  empire  of  benevolence 
and  charity;  and  its  Leader  and  King  is  a  little  Child. 

My  brethren,  we,  who  have  met  here  to-day  for  this 
joyous  Christmas  service,  form  part  of  the  host  of  the 
little  Child.  We  are  marching  under  His  banner  of 
peace.  We  are  singing  with  the  countless  multitudes 
of  His  followers,  nay,  with  the  angehc  host  itself,  the 
wondrous  hymn  of  the  nativity,  "Gloria  in  Excelsis 
Deo.". 

Let  us  ask  ourselves.  Whither  is  He  leading  us,  and 
what  is  He  teaching  us  to-day?  The  answer  rises  to 
every  lip,  "He  is  leading  us  to  Bethlehem."  Yes;  not 
to  Jerusalem,  the  splendid  city,  but  to  Bethlehem,  the 
little,  obscure  village;  not  to  the  gorgeous  temple,  but 


A  Little  Child  Shall  Lead  Them  45 

to  the  lowly  inn, — to  find,  not  a  king,  arrayed  in  purple 
and  fine  linen,  but  a  babe  "wrapped  in  swaddling- 
clothes  and  laid  in  a  manger." 

Ah,  "God's  thoughts  are  not  as  our  thoughts!"  We 
go  to  find  the  new-born  King  of  whom  the  prophet 
said,  ''His  name  shall  be  called  Wonderful,  Counsellor, 
the  Mighty  God,  the  Prince  of  Peace,"  and  instead  of 
royal  state  and  splendor  and  magnificence,  we  behold 
obscurity,  simplicity,  poverty,  weakness!  The  obscur- 
ity of  the  wayside  inn;  the  simplicity  of  Mary,  the  vir- 
gin-mother; the  poverty  of  Joseph,  the  foster-father; 
the  weakness  of  a  helpless  little  child! 

Thus  does  the  eternal  God  set  at  naught  human  dis- 
tinctions of  riches  and  honor  and  state  and  rank! 

Here,  it  would  seem,  is  the  first  great  lesson  the  Uttle 
Child  is  teaching  us  to-day — the  vanity,  the  emptiness, 
the  nothingness,  of  human  distinctions.  Men  bow  down 
to  rank  and  power.  They  worship  riches.  They  bow 
the  knee  to  earthly  glory.  But  by  the  manger  to-day, 
"where  sleeps  the  royal  Child,"  who  is  King  of  kings 
and  Lord  of  lords,  we  learn  how  vain  are  all  such  things. 
It  is  humanity,  stripped  of  all  adventitious  distinctions, 
of  all  accidental  accompaniments  of  wealth  or  rank  or 
power, — humanity  in  its  essential  kinship  to  the  divine, 
that  is  kingly,  that  is  glorious,  that  is  to  be  honored  and 
reverenced.  'Tis  not  the  royal  robe  that  makes  a  king, 
but  the  royal  soul.  'Tis  not  the  rank  or  the  riches  that 
a  man  possesses  that  should  give  him  honor  or  homage 
among  his  fellows,  but  the  nobiUty  of  his  character,  the 
wealth  of  his  human  sympathies,  his  true,  unperverted 
manhood. 

And  then  again  the  shrine  to  which  we  are  led  to-day 
— the  sacred  grotto  of  the  Nativity — reveals  not  a  man 


46  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

in  the  pride  of  his  strength,  in  the  fulness  of  his  develop- 
ment, sturdy,  strong,  self-reliant,  but  a  babe,  a  helpless 
little  child  dependent  on  its  mother. 

It  is  infancy  which  is  glorified  in  the  Christmas  festi- 
val,— as  if  to  teach  us  that  not  in  the  self-reliance  and 
conscious  strength  of  manhood  we  are  to  find  our  ideal, 
but  in  the  simplicity,  in  the  dependence,  in  the  trust- 
fulness of  a  little  child.  Therein  lies  the  beginning  of 
the  truest  life,  of  the  noblest  manhood,  of  the  highest 
development  of  our  human  nature.  We  are  to  rise  by 
stooping  first  very  low.  "We  are  to  learn  by  trusting. 
This  faith,  this  trust,  of  a  little  child,  is  the  first  prin- 
ciple of  man's  intellectual  and  spiritual  development. 
He  is  constituted  "first  to  believe,  then  to  know."  He 
must  confess  himself  a  child  ere  he  can  grow  to  true 
manhood.  Like  a  child  he  must  listen  for  the  voice  of 
his  father.  Like  a  child  he  must  feel  his  weakness,  his 
dependence.  Like  a  child  he  must  reach  out  for  a 
stronger  arm  than  his  own  on  which  to  lean.  Not  self- 
sufficiency,  but  humility;  not  self-reliance,  but  trust- 
fulness; not  pride  of  strength,  but  a  sense  of  weakness 
and  need,  is  the  key  which  will  open  the  door  into  a  true 
and  genuine  manhood. 

This  is  the  second  lesson  to  be  learned  as  we  stand 
by  the  manger  and  look  at  the  Christ-child. 

But  the  great  lesson,  the  one  which  overshadows  all 
others  as  the  light  of  the  sun  quenches  the  feeble  rays 
of  the  stars,  is  the  lesson  of  the  love  of  God  for  His  chil- 
dren. "Behold  what  manner  of  love  the  Father  hath 
bestowed  upon  us!"  "God  so  loved  the  world  that  He 
gave  His  only-begotten  Son."  "God,  who  at  sundry 
times  and  in  divers  manners  spake  in  time  past  unto 
the  fathers  by  the  prophets,  hath  in  these  last  days 


A  Little  Child  Shall  Lead  Them  47 

spoken  unto  us  by  His  Son."  "  In  the  fulness  of  time 
God  sent  forth  His  Son,  made  of  a  woman."  "In  the 
beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God, 
and  the  Word  was  God,  and  the  Word  was  made  flesh 
and  dwelt  among  us,  and  we  beheld  His  glory,  the  glory 
of  the  only-begotten  of  the  Father." 

This  Babe  of  Bethlehem  is  the  eternal  Son  of  God, 
who  has  come  into  the  world,  taking  our  human  nature 
into  union  with  His  own,  that  He  may  be  truly  the  Son 
of  Man,  "  bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh,"  while 
He  is  also  the  Son  of  God,  King  of  kings,  and  Lord  of 
lords. 

"A  httle  Child  shall  lead  them."  He  will  lead  the 
prodigal  back  to  his  Father.  He  will  lead  the  pubHcan 
and  the  sinner  to  see  the  error  of  his  ways.  He  will  lead 
all  the  erring  sons  of  men  into  the  paths  of  penitence. 
And  He  wiU  do  this  by  the  constraining  power  of  His 
own  infinite  and  unspeakable  love.  Bethlehem  is  radi- 
ant with  the  light  of  love — the  love  of  God  for  His  chil- 
dren. The  angel's  message  still  echoes  in  the  midnight 
air,  "  Behold,  I  bring  you  good  tidings  of  great  joy,  which 
shall  he  to  all  people.  For  unto  you  is  horn  this  day  in 
the  city  of  David  a  Saviour,  which  is  Christ  the 
Lord." 

It  is  that  wondrous  message,  that  "old,  old  story  of 
Jesus  and  His  love,"  that  has  transformed  the  world 
and  kindled  a  new  hope  in  the  heart  of  humanity. 
The  httle  Child  has  been  leading  men  ever  since  that 
wonderful  night  of  the  Nativity.  He  has  led  them 
nearer  to  God.  He  has  led  them  into  a  truer  knowledge 
of  God  as  their  Father.  He  has  led  them  upward  into 
a  liigher  life  ;  out  of  their  selfishness  into  self-forgetful- 
ness,  into  self-sacrifice;  out  of  their  tumultuous  passions 


48  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

and  ambitions  into  the  calm  and  peace  of  a  life  of  faith 
and  love.  And  He  has  led  men  nearer  to  each  other. 
He  has  made  them  know  each  other  as  the  children  of 
the  same  Father.  He  has  introduced  the  era  of  the 
brotherhood  of  humanity,  whose  goal  and  hope  is, 
"Peace  on  earth,  good  will  toward  men." 

Brethren,  let  us  learn  well  this  great  lesson  of  love 
which  shines  out  so  radiantly  over  the  manger  of  Beth- 
lehem. Let  us  believe  in  the  marvellous  love  of  God 
for  us  His  children,  against  all  the  doubt  and  scepticism 
which  is  born  of  our  fears  or  of  our  sorrows.  Let  us  be- 
lieve in  this  amazing  revelation  that  tells  us  God  has 
been  manifest  in  the  flesh, — has  taken  our  nature  upon 
Him,  has  entered  into  our  humanity.  And,  beheving 
this,  let  that  great  love  constrain  us ;  constrain  us  to  be 
pure,  to  be  true,  to  be  loving,  to  be  charitable,  to  live 
not  unto  ourselves,  but  unto  God  and  our  fellow 
man. 

"A  little  Child  shall  lead  them."  Ah,  let  Him  lead 
us!  Let  us  arise  and  follow  Him;  leaving  behind  our 
pride,  our  wayward  will,  our  selfishness.  Let  us  follow 
Him  in  deeds  of  kindness  and  benevolence  and  charity. 
Let  us  follow  Him  in  His  gentleness,  His  patience,  His 
forbearance.  His  long-suffering.  His  meekness,  His  hu- 
mility. His  footprints  are  not  hard  to  see — among  the 
poor  and  the  lowly,  among  the  sick  and  the  suffering, 
among  the  lost  and  the  fallen  ones.  They  will  lead  us 
out  of  our  selfish,  self-indulgent  lives  into  deeds  of 
Christ-hke  love.  They  will  lead  us  out  of  the  morass 
of  an  aimless,  useless  life,  up  on  to  the  heights  of  joyous 
self-sacrifice  for  His  dear  sake. 

May  the  vision  of  the  Christ-child  be  in  all  our  hearts 
and  all  our  homes  to-day.    Come  to  us,  O  holy  Child 


A  Little  Child  Shall  Lead  Them  49 

Jesus,  and  lead  us  all  in  the  blessed  steps  of  Thy  most 
holy  life! 

"  O  holy  Child  of  Bethlehem! 
Descend  to  us,  we  pray; 
Cast  out  our  sin,  and  enter  in. 
Be  bom  in  us  to-day  " 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  THE  INCARNATION 

FOR   THE   SUNDAY   AFTER   CHRISTMAS 

"  Great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness;  God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh." 

I  Tim.  iii.  16. 

On  this  Sunday  after  Christmas  our  thoughts  turn 
naturally  to  the  contemplation  of  the  transcendent 
mystery  of  the  incarnation,  of  which  the  Bethlehem 
scene  was  the  visible  expression.  From  the  beginning 
the  Christian  Church  has  held,  as  an  essential  part  of  her 
faith,  that  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God,  "for  us  men 
and  for  our  salvation  came  down  from  heaven,  and  was 
incarnate  by  the  Holy  Ghost  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and 
was  made  man  " — language  which  is  only  another  form 
of  such  apostolic  words  as  these :  "  The  Word  was  made 
flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,  and  we  beheld  His  glory,  the 
glory  as  of  the  only-begotten  of  the  Father";  or  these, 
"No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time;  the  only-begotten 
Son,  which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  He  hath  mani- 
fested Him  " ;  or  again  these  of  our  text,  "  Great  is  the 
mystery  of  godhness;  God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh." 

It  is  to  this  great,  but  luminous,  mystery  that  I  would 
direct  your  thoughts  this  morning. 

I.  Now  on  the  very  threshold  of  this  discussion  we 
are  met  by  difficulties  of  so  formidable  a  character  that 
behef  in  the  Incarnation  seems  to  many  quite  impossible. 

And  first  we  are  told  that  the  Christian  doctrine  of 

50 


The  Mystery  of  the  Incarnation  51 

Divine  Incarnation  finds  its  counterpart  in  the  ethnic 
rehgions;  for  example,  those  of  India  and  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  that  as  the  latter  are  recognized  as  mythical 
in  origin,  the  former  will  reasonably  be  placed  in  the 
same  category.  But  in  the  case  of  Christianity  there 
was  no  time  for  the  evolution  of  the  myth.  Belief  in 
the  Incarnation  synchronizes  with  the  first  beginnings 
of  the  religion.  And  then  it  would  be  easy  to  show 
that  the  Christian  Incarnation  is  fundamentally  differ- 
ent from  the  ethnic  incarnations.  Even  that  of  Buddha, 
when  carefuUy  scrutinized,  presents  no  real  analogy  to 
the  Incarnation  of  Christ. 

It  is  objected,  again,  that  it  is  not  possible  to  con- 
ceive how  God  could  enter  into  our  human  nature  and 
be  manifest  in  the  flesh.  We  are  told  that  the  doctrine 
involves  a  mystery  unfathomable  and  incomprehensible. 
We  hasten  to  confess  the  truth  of  this  statement,  while 
we  utterly  deny  that  it  gives  ground  for  rejecting  the 
Incarnation.  The  existence  of  mystery  in  connection 
with  religion  is  not  itself  a  mystery.  Indeed,  a  reUgion 
without  mysteries  would  be  an  ocean  without  depths,  a 
firmament  without  stars !  We  shall  not  escape  mystery 
by  rejecting  Christianity.  In  the  heavens,  in  the  earth, 
in  the  human  frame,  in  the  soul  of  man,  there  are  mys- 
teries upon  mysteries.  Science  has  solved  many  mys- 
teries; but  it  has  revealed  many  more  than  it  has  solved. 
In  truth  we  may  say  that  the  periphery  of  every  science 
is  studded  with  mysteries  as  thickly  as  the  nightly  fir- 
mament with  stars. 

If,  then,  we  are  face  to  face  with  mystery  in  every  de- 
partment of  the  kingdom  of  nature,  why  should  it  be 
thought  strange  if  we  encounter  myster}^  in  the  spiritual 
world?     If  we  meet  it  in  man,  why  should  we  not  meet 


52  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

it  in  God?  In  fact,  mystery  increases  as  we  ascend  the 
ladder  of  being  from  inanimate  matter  to  the  highly 
complicated  organism  which  we  call  man.  And  just  as 
we  reasonably  believe  the  mysteries  of  science  upon  the 
authority  of  scientific  investigators,  so  we  believe  the 
mysteries  of  Christianity  on  the  authority  of  Jesus 
Christ.  It  follows  that  to  call  upon  us  to  reject  the  In- 
carnation because  it  involves  a  mystery  which  we  can- 
not comprehend,  amounts  to  nothing  but  an  appeal  to 
our  ignorance. 

But  yet  again  it  is  objected  that  it  is  inconceivable 
that  the  infmite  Creator  should  humble  Himself,  as  the 
Incarnation  supposes  Him  to  have  done,  and  for  so  puny 
and  insignificant  a  creature  as  man.  The  immeasura- 
ble vastness  of  the  universe,  as  we  now  see  it  through  the 
aid  of  modern  astronomy,  indefinitely  enlarges  our  con- 
ception of  the  greatness  of  God,  and  renders  the  thought 
of  such  a  being  becoming  incarnate  for  man's  sake  cor- 
respondingly incredible. 

But  Christianity  embodies  two  grand  thoughts  which 
disintegrate  the  force  of  this  formidable  objection — I 
mean  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  essential  nobility 
of  the  soul  of  man.  If  man  is  the  offspring  of  God, 
made  in  His  image,  then,  mortal  though  he  be,  he  is  not 
insignificant,  but  unspeakably  dear,  and  it  becomes 
natural  that  God,  his  Father,  should  do  great  things  for 
him — yea  even  take  upon  Him  our  flesh  through  the 
Incarnation. 

Time  does  not  permit  me  to  do  more  than  state  in 
briefest  form  the  answer  to  another  objection  to  the  In- 
carnation, which  to  many  minds  appears  at  once  con- 
clusive— I  mean  its  miraculous  character.  A  miracle  is 
supposed  to  be  fundamentally  opposed  to  the  whole 


The  Mystery  of  the  Incarnation  53 

modern  view  of  the  world,  and  since  the  Incarnation  is 
bound  up  vnth  belief  in  the  miraculous  virgin-birth  it 
must  be  rejected. 

In  answer  we  appeal  to  experience.  The  assumption 
that  miracles  are  impossible  is  overthrown  by  the  facts 
of  history.  You  may  deny  the  story  of  the  miracle,  but 
'  the  miracle  of  the  story '  remains ;  the  miracle  of  the 
character  of  Jesus  remains;  the  miracle  of  His  life  and  of 
His  resurrection;  the  moral  miracles  wrought  by  Him  all 
through  the  Christian  ages;  the  miracle  of  the  Christian 
Church,  its  indestructible  life,  its  wonderful  work.  All 
these  are  effects  which  natural  causes  cannot  explain, 
and  are,  therefore,  miracles — some  in  the  moral  sphere, 
some  in  the  physical  sphere — and  a  moral  miracle,  let 
us  remember,  presents  just  as  great  difficulties  of  belief 
as  a  physical  one.  To  acknowledge  the  former,  yet  deny 
the  latter,  is  really  fundamentally  illogical  and  incon- 
sistent. 

II.  Such  are  the  chief  difficulties  in  the  way  of  be- 
lieving in  the  Incarnation.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that 
they  are  serious  difficulties,  though  I  think  they  can  be 
met  and  overcome  along  the  lines  I  have  indicated. 

But  now  let  us  turn  to  look  at  the  difficulties  on  the 
other  side — the  difficulties  of  unbelief.  I  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  saying  that  the  latter  are  far  more  formidable 
than  the  former.  The  man  who  rejects  the  Incarnation 
finds  himself  confronted  by  an  array  of  facts  which  it  is 
impossible  to  explain. 

1.  He  has  to  explain,  in  the  first  place,  how  it  came  to 
pass  that  the  disciples  of  Christ  cherished  so  intense  a 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  the  Incarnation,  if  that  con- 
viction was  not  based  on  fact.  A  belief  so  extraordi- 
nary, held  with  one  consent  from  the  very  first  by  the 


54  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

whole  Christian  community,  and  held  so  tenaciously 
and  with  such  depth  of  conviction,  reflected,  too,  in  all 
the  various  books  of  the  early  Christian  literature,  must 
have  had  a  solid  basis  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Himself. 
Plainly  it  was  He  who  taught  it;  and  if  He  taught  it, 
He  believed  it;  and  if  He  believed  it,  it  must  have  been 
true,  unless  we  are  prepared  to  say  that  He  was  a  de- 
ceiver or  a  self-deluded  fanatic,  neither  of  which  alter- 
natives can  for  a  moment  be  accepted. 

2.  The  man  who  rejects  the  Incarnation  must  also 
explain  the  success  of  the  Christian  religion.  That  re- 
ligion is  the  religion  of  the  Incarnation.  Its  success  in 
overcoming  the  old  religions  and  the  old  philosophies  is 
the  success  of  this  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation.  Upon 
the  hypothesis  that  that  doctrine  is  absurd,  or  contrary 
to  reason,  or  incredible,  how  is  it  to  be  explained  that 
it  achieved  such  amazing  victories  over  the  ruling  sys- 
tems of  belief,  both  religious  and  philosophical,  in  the 
face  of  the  active  enmity  of  their  leaders  and  of  the 
state  itself? 

3.  But  again.  It  is  confessed  on  all  hands  that  Chris- 
tianity has  exerted  an  influence,  the  best  and  the  most 
beneficent  in  all  the  records  of  history.  But  if  the  In- 
carnation is  indeed  a  delusion,  a  contradiction,  an  ab- 
surdity, then  we  are  confronted  by  this  remarkable,  yea, 
inexplicable,  phenomenon,  that  a  system  whose  founda- 
tion is  laid  upon  such  a  basis  of  falsehood  has,  as  Mr. 
Lecky  confesses,  done  more  to  regenerate  and  ennoble 
the  human  race  than  all  the  disquisitions  of  philoso- 
phers and  all  the  exhortations  of  moralists! 

These  are  some  of  the  difficulties  which  confront  the 
man  who  rejects  the  truth  of  the  Incarnation.  They 
are  not  only  serious,   they   are  insurmountable.     He 


The  Mystery  of  the  Incarnation  55 

must  be  credulous  indeed  who  can  accept  all  the  con- 
tradictions to  reason  and  to  the  moral  sense  which  they 
involve. 

III.  Let  us  come,  then,  with  open  minds  to  the  con- 
sideration of  this  great  mystery  of  the  manifestation  of 
God  in  the  Man  Christ  Jesus.  We  shall  find,  I  think, 
that  it  is  not  only  not  incredible,  but  in  some  respects 
plainly  reasonable,  even  natural,  and  as  marvellously 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  man  as  light  is  to  the  human 
eye. 

1.  I  suggest,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  virgin-birth  of 
Jesus,  which  is  so  great  a  stumbling-block  to  many,  is 
in  harmony  with  the  nature  of  His  person  and  the  char- 
acter of  His  mission. 

If  the  Son  of  God  was  to  take  upon  Him  human  na- 
ture, free  from  the  taint  of  a  sinful  heredity,  then  surely 
it  is  not  strange  that  He  was  not  born  according  to  the 
laws  of  natural  generation,  but  by  the  immediate  power 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  "Miracles  on  earth,"  says  Jean 
Paul,  "are  natural  events  in  heaven";  and  surely  it  was 
natural  that  the  Son  of  God  should  be  (as  men  call  it) 
supernaturally  born.  We  must  look  at  the  Incarnation 
in  the  light  of  the  whole  history  and  personality  and 
work  of  Jesus.  The  wondrous  birth  must  be  considered 
in  connection  with  the  wondrous  life,  the  wondrous 
death,  the  wondrous  resurrection,  the  wondrous  work, 
and  the  wondrous  person  of  Christ.  They  all  belong  to 
a  higher  order  of  events.  To  our  mortal  sight  and  by 
our  human  standards  they  are  all  supernatural.  And  I 
think  we  may  say  that  for  one  who  was  what  Christ  was, 
and  was  to  do  what  Christ  did,  and  to  die  as  Christ  died, 
and  to  rise  again  as  Christ  rose,  a  purely  natural  birth 
would  have  been  unnatural. 


S6  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

2.  Passing  to  the  prior  and  greater  question  of  the 
reasonableness  of  the  Incarnation  itself,  I  ask  you  to 
consider,  first,  whether  a  revelation  from  God  to  man  be 
not  altogether  reasonable,  even  probable,  when  once 
you  admit  the  existence  of  a  good  God,  and  the  pres- 
ence in  this  world  of  a  race  involved  in  sin  and  moral 
darkness. 

And  then,  if  the  probability  of  God  making  a  revela- 
tion of  Himself  to  man  is  recognized,  I  ask  again  whether 
there  is  anything  inherently  incredible  or  improbable  in 
the  thought  that  He  should  reveal  Himself  through  a 
perfect  man. 

Reflect  that  we  find  in  the  natural  world  what  we 
may  call  an  ascending  scale  of  natural  revelations,  each 
more  perfect  than  the  last,  as  we  rise  from  the  mineral 
to  the  vegetable,  and  then  to  the  animal,  kingdom,  and 
then  from  the  lowest  forms  of  life  up  through  the  mani- 
fold orders  of  living  creatures  to  man,  the  apex  of  crea- 
tion, "the  paragon  of  animals."  What  I  mean  to  say 
is,  that  the  wisdom  and  power  and  glory  of  the  Creator 
are  revealed  more  and  more  fully  as  we  pass  upward 
through  the  various  orders  of  beings,  and  that  they  are 
most  fully  revealed  in  man.  There  is  an  outshining  of 
divine  wisdom,  "  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day," 
in  the  countless  biological  forms  of  the  animal  world, 
till,  in  the  marvellous  structure  of  the  human  frame, 
and  much  more  in  his  intellectual  and  moral  nature,  we 
reach  unquestionably  the  most  perfect  manifestation  of 
the  attributes  of  Deity  that  the  field  of  nature  contains. 

Bearing  this  in  mind,  consider  whether  it  is  not  in 
harmony  with  reason  that,  if  God  were  to  give  a  yet  fur- 
ther and  more  complete  manifestation  of  Himself,  He 
should  do  so  through  a  perfect  man,  one  who,  while 


The  Mystery  of  the  Incarnation  57 

truly  human,  is  yet  without  sin,  without  flaw,  without 
imperfection  of  any  kind. 

Looked  at  in  this  hght  we  begin  to  see  that  the  In- 
carnation, instead  of  being  a  contradiction  of  nature — 
something  unnatural  and  monstrous — presents  itself 
to  our  thought  as  the  complement  and  completion,  the 
crown  and  consummation,  of  nature.  The  divine  un- 
veiling, that  is,  the  revelation,  of  God,  which  the  visible 
world  contains,  and  which  becomes  more  and  more  com- 
plete as  the  vast  process  of  evolution  unfolds  itself, 
reaches  its  completion,  not  in  man,  with  his  limitations, 
his  failures,  his  sins,  but  in  the  divine  Man,  the  Man 
Christ  Jesus,  who  alone  realizes  the  perfection  of  the 
type,  and  who  at  the  same  time  so  wonderfully  mani- 
fests and  reveals  the  divine  nature. 

Thus  this  great  "  mystery  of  godliness  " — "  God  mani- 
fest in  the  flesh  " — really  completes  the  process  of  de- 
velopment and  of  revelation,  which  begins  in  the  in- 
animate, unconscious  world — in  the  rocks,  in  the  seas, 
in  the  chemical  and  physical  forces — and  goes  forw^ard 
in  ever-increasing  wonder  and  beauty  through  the 
varied  forms  of  organized  life,  and  then  in  the  intelli- 
gence and  instinct  of  the  lower  animals,  tiU  it  reaches 
a  truly  splendid,  though  not  yet  perfect,  manifestation 
of  the  divine  power  and  wisdom  in  the  bodily  frame  and 
in  the  intellectual  and  moral  powers  of  man.  Of  this 
process,  I  say,  the  Incarnation  is  the  consummation  and 
the  completion,  and  thus  this  supernatural  phenomenon, 
this  great  mystery  of  godUness,  is  linked  on  to  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  and  becomes  a  part  of  the  great  whole 
that  is  the  work  and  creation  of  God. 

3.  To  one  other  aspect  of  this  great  theme  I  ask  your 
attention  for  a  single  moment.     Look  at  the  face  and 


58  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

figure  of  the  incarnate  Christ  as  they  may  be  seen  in  the 
four  gospels,  and  consider  how  both  the  human  and  the 
divine  natures  are  revealed  as  they  are  nowhere  else. 

As  to  the  human  nature,  you  see  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
the  perfect  type  of  humanity.  In  all  other  men,  the 
greatest  and  the  noblest,  in  all  ages,  you  recognize  the 
failure  of  the  human  ideal.  You  see  the  race,  as  it  were, 
reaching  out  after  the  perfect  type,  but  never  attaining 
it;  you  see  not  a  complete,  but  an  arrested  develop- 
ment. Only  in  Him  whom  the  Christian  Church  adores 
as  the  incarnate  Christ  do  you  find  the  realization  of 
the  ideal,  the  fulfilment  of  the  type  of  our  humanity. 
It  is  the  all  but  universal  confession  of  mankind  that 
the  Man  of  Nazareth  is  the  one  perfect  man  of  all  the 
ages  of  history. 

Turn  now  to  the  other  side  of  His  personality.  It  is 
not  only  the  human  that  we  recognize  in  Him,  but  the 
divine  as  well.  The  Christian  Church  has  ever  stead- 
fastly believed  that  He  was  God  manifest  in  the  flesh, 
and,  I  think,  whoever  earnestly  and  profoundly  studies 
the  humanity  of  Jesus  must  more  and  more  recognize 
in  Him  the  divine  nature  and  the  divine  attributes. 
Through  His  perfect  human  soul  there  shines  the  glory 
of  Deity,  both  in  His  words  and  in  His  acts;  and  as  we 
sit  at  His  feet  and  listen  to  His  teaching,  as  we  follow 
His  footsteps,  as  we  ponder  His  works,  we  get  such  an 
impression  and  apprehension  of  God  as  we  receive  from 
no  other  source  whatever. 

Clearly,  God  in  His  power,  God  in  His  goodness,  God 
in  His  love,  God  in  His  justice,  God  in  His  tenderness, 
God  in  His  fatherliness,  is  manifest  in  this  man,  Jesus 
Christ,  as  nowhere  else  and  in  none  other  way.  Thus 
experience  makes  us  realize  the  profound  truth  of  His 


The  Mystery  of  the  Incarnation  59 

owTi  saying,  "He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the 
Father."  And  so  when  we  hear  Him  calmly  asserting 
that  He  was  the  Son  of  God,  and  had  come  forth  from 
the  Father  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  we  never  think 
of  charging  Him  with  blasphemy,  as  we  would  surely 
charge  any  other  man  using  such  language;  but  we  in- 
stinctively feel  that  these  His  stupendous  claims  are  in 
absolute  harmony  with  His  whole  person.  Yes,  we 
confess  that  He  is  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh." 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  let  me  try  to  sum  up  in  a  few 
words  the  attitude  of  mind  which  an  intelligent  Chris- 
tian may  hold  toward  the  great  mystery  of  the  Incarna- 
tion. He  recognizes  the  great  intellectual  difficulties 
which  stand  in  the  way  of  accepting  it,  but  he  does  not 
consider  them  insuperable.  He  has  felt  their  force,  but 
he  has  found  the  difficulties  of  unbehef  in  this  sublime 
doctrine  far  greater;  and  he  has  come  to  see  that  the 
charge  of  credulity  lies  against  those  who  reject  it  rather 
than  against  those  who  accept  it.  He  does  not,  indeed, 
imagine  that  he  has  fathomed  the  mystery  of  the  union 
of  the  divine  and  the  human  natures.  No;  the  mystery 
remains,  and  he  veils  his  face  before  it  in  deepest  rever- 
ence ;  but  he  perceives  that  it  is  a  mystery  which  is  full 
of  light  for  the  darkened  soul  and  the  darkened  life  of 
man.  More  and  more,  as  he  ponders  its  meaning,  he 
sees  its  harmony  with  the  nature  of  God  and  the  needs 
of  His  sinful  creatures.  It  ceases  to  be  incredible  to 
him  that  the  infinite  Creator  should  humble  Himself, 
even  to  the  manger  of  Bethlehem,  when  he  has  awaked 
to  the  sublime  fact  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 

And  then  as  he  studies  the  strange  scroll  of  human 
history,  he  finds  that  this  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation 
has  changed  the  world.     He  marks  the  failure  of  philos- 


6o  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

ophy,  the  failure  of  natural  religion,  the  failure  of  in- 
tellectual culture,  the  failure  of  material  civihzation  to 
upHft  and  regenerate  the  race,  or  to  answer  its  deepest 
questions,  or  to  satisfy  its  profoundest  longings  and  as- 
pirations; and  then  he  sees  that  the  reUgion  of  this  great 
mystery  of  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh  "  has,  wherever 
heartily  accepted,  succeeded  in  imparting  the  power  of 
a  higher  and  purer  hfe  and  the  joyful  hope  of  immor- 
tality. Then,  too,  he  understands  the  dictum  of  a  great 
modern  German  philosopher,  "The  advent  of  Christ  is 
the  goal  of  all  previous  history,  and  the  starting-point 
of  all  history  to  come." 


GOD'S    PRESENCE    A    TALISMAN    FOR    THE 
NEW  YEAR 

FOR   THE    FIRST   SUNDAY   IN   THE   NEW   YEAR 

"And  He  said:  My  presence  shall  go  with  thee,  and  I  will  give 
thee  rest.  And  he  said  unto  Him:  If  Thy  presence  go  not 
with  me,  carry  us  not  up  hence." — Exodus  xxxiii.  14,  15. 

The  circumstances  under  which  these  words  were 
spoken  were  remarkable.  Moses  had  been  in  the  Mount 
with  God,  interceding  for  his  people  after  their  great  sin. 
"Oh,"  he  cried,  "this  people  have  sinned  a  great  sin, 
and  have  made  them  gods  of  gold.  Yet  now,  if  Thou 
wdlt  forgive  their  sin — ;  and  if  not,  blot  me,  I  pray  Thee, 
out  of  Thy  book."  In  response  to  this  self-effacing  act 
of  intercession  the  Lord  had  bid  Moses  resume  his  place 
at  the  head  of  Israel  and  lead  them  on  to  the  promised 
land,  promising  to  send  an  angel  before  them,  but  add- 
ing, "  I  wiU  not  go  up  in  the  midst  of  thee;  for  thou  art 
a  stiff  necked  people;  lest  I  consume  thee  in  the  way." 
It  was  this  which  called  forth  this  bold  and  passionate 
remonstrance  from  Moses :  "  If  Thy  presence  go  not  with 
me,  carry  us  not  up  hence. "  It  was  not  enough  for  this 
man  of  God  that  Jehovah  had  spared  the  people  and  had 
promised  them  the  presence  and  guidance  of  an  angel 
from  His  throne,  who  should  drive  out  the  heathen  from 
before  them.     He  was  not  content  that  God's  messenger 

should  go  with  them.    Nothing  less  than  the  presence 

6i 


62  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

of  Jehovah  Himself  in  their  midst  could  satisfy  the 
longing  of  his  heart.  Without  it  he  could  not  take  up 
his  heavy  burden  as  the  leader  and  lawgiver  of  Israel. 
Without  it  he  could  not  face  the  perils  of  the  wilderness, 
the  difficulties  and  hardships,  the  trials  and  the  battles 
before  him.  Rather  would  he  abandon  his  great  en- 
terprise. Rather  would  he  perish  then  and  there  be- 
fore Sinai.  And  so  he  cries  out  in  deep  emotion,  "// 
Thy  presence  go  not  with  me,  carry  us  not  up  hence. " 

His  prayer  was  heard.  His  persevering  faith  was  re- 
warded. The  decree,  "  I  will  not  go  up  in  the  midst  of 
thee,"  was  revoked,  and  instead  thereof  Moses  heard 
these  blessed  words  of  promise:  '^ My  presence  shall  go 
with  thee,  and  I  will  give  thee  rest." 

My  brethren,  this  promise  which  fell  so  gratefully  on 
the  ear  of  Moses  ought  to  be  as  sweet  and  as  full  of  com- 
fort to  us,  standing  as  we  do  this  morning  on  the  thresh- 
old of  a  new  year,  with  its  unknown  experiences  of  trial, 
of  difficulty,  of  temptation,  possibly  of  sorrow  or  of 
affliction  before  us.  I  think  we  shall  each  enter  upon  it 
with  a  braver  and  more  hopeful  spirit  if  we  reflect  a  little 
on  the  significance  of  this  promise  to  Moses  and  to  us. 

1.  And  first  think  for  a  moment  of  the  deep  feeling  of 
Moses  that  he  could  not  undertake  the  wilderness  jour- 
ney without  the  assurance  of  the  presence  of  God.  No 
character  in  history  is  more  completely  associated  and 
identified  with  the  idea  of  strength  than  that  of  Moses. 
Michael  Angelo  in  his  famous  statue  in  Florence  has  rep- 
resented him  as  the  very  incarnation  of  power  and  cour- 
age in  form  and  feature.  For  massiveness,  for  force,  for 
grandeur,  none  of  the  leaders  of  men,  none  of  the  great 
men  who  have  made  history,  surpass  in  our  imagination 
Moses,  the  stern  Hebrew  lawgiver,  who  has  written  the 


A  Talisman  for  the  New  Year  63 

Decalogue  upon  the  conscience  of  the  world.  Yet  see  his 
profound  emotion,  his  hesitance,  his  fear,  at  the  idea  of 
facing  his  life  and  his  work  without  the  presence  of  God : 
"  //  Thy  presence  go  not  with  me,  carry  us  not  up  hence. " 

It  may  be  said,  no  wonder  even  Moses  felt  the  need 
of  the  constant  presence  and  guidance  of  the  Almighty, 
when  we  consider  the  nature  of  the  enterprise  he 
had  in  hand.  He  was  to  conduct  a  vast  multitude — 
men,  women,  and  children  —  through  the  desert  of 
Arabia;  he  was  to  beat  off  their  enemies;  he  was  to 
organize  that  half-civilized  people  into  a  nation;  to  civi- 
lize them;  to  give  them  laws  and  a  government;  to  con- 
soHdate  them  into  a  confederation  of  tribes,  with  cohe- 
sion and  strength  enough  to  overcome  the  warlike  na- 
tions of  Canaan.  For  such  a  task  it  is  not  strange  the 
strongest  man  felt  his  insufficiency — felt  the  need  of  an 
omnipotent  arm  on  which  to  lean. 

Indeed,  any  man  who  has  before  him  some  great  task 
for  the  world  or  for  humanity  may  very  naturally  have 
the  same  feeling.  When  we  think  of  the  apostles  going 
forth  in  their  weakness  to  conquer  the  world  with  only 
the  gospel  for  their  weapon,  we  do  not  wonder  they 
leaned  hard  on  the  staff  of  Christ's  promise  that  His 
presence  should  go  with  them.  When  we  think  of 
Martin  Luther  standing  alone  against  the  power  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  and  of  the  greatest  monarch  of 
the  world,  we  do  not  wonder  that  he  felt  his  utter  need 
of  the  divine  presence.  When  we  see  Columbus  sail- 
ing out  into  the  west  in  his  crazy  little  caravel,  across 
unknown  seas,  into  unknowTi  dangers,  seeking  a  new 
world  that  no  man  had  ever  seen,  and  in  whose  exist- 
ence no  man  but  himself  believed,  we  do  not  wonder 
at  what  he  said  to  his  children  on  his  deathbed,  that 


64  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

he  ever  felt  himself  the  instrument  of  divine  providence, 
and  ever  relied  on  the  present  help  of  God.  And  when 
we  read  of  the  profound  conviction  of  George  Wash- 
ington— all  through  those  seven  dark  years  while  the 
feeble  colonies  battled  with  the  military  power  of  Great 
Britain — that  only  by  the  guidance  and  the  blessing  of 
God  could  he  hope  for  success,  this,  too,  does  not  sur- 
prise us.  Nor  again  does  it  seem  strange  that  men  like 
Stanley  and  Livingstone,  exploring  the  unknown  depths 
of  the  Dark  Continent,  should  have  been  deeply  im- 
pressed with  their  need  of  the  presence  and  the  pro- 
tection of  Almighty  God. 

But  I  hold  up  the  example  of  Moses  as  a  model  not 
only  for  those  who  have  a  great  task  to  accomplish  for 
humanity,  or  for  civilization,  or  for  the  Church,  but  for 
all  men  without  distinction — for  the  most  obscure,  for 
the  humblest  of  us  all  who  are  met  here  to-day  in  the 
sanctuary  of  God.  There  is  not  one  of  us  who  ought 
not  to  feel  as  Moses  felt,  that  he  could  not  face  his  life 
or  his  work  without  the  assurance  of  the  presence  of 
God. 

You  will  tell  me,  perhaps,  that  you  feel  this  to  be  true 
in  the  great  exigencies  and  emergencies  of  life,  in  the 
great  difficulties,  the  great  dangers,  the  great  trials,  the 
great  temptations  of  life.  But  it  is  not  this  which  I 
urge.  I  want  to  impress  upon  you  the  thought  that  you 
cannot  wisely  face  the  most  uneventful  day  of  your  ex- 
istence without  the  presence  of  God  to  sustain  you. 
"The  trivial  round,  the  common  task,"  will  involve 
duties,  difficulties,  responsibilities,  temptations,  which 
no  man  can  meet,  as  they  ought  to  be  met,  unless  God 
be  with  him.  And  therefore,  as  you  look  to-day  into 
the  new  year,  with  the  duties,  the  responsibiUties,  the 


A  Talisman  for  the  New  Year  65 

opportunities  which  you  know  must  be  faced,  and  with 
those  other  experiences  of  trial,  or  of  sorrow,  or  of  suffer- 
ing, or  of  loss,  or  of  temptation,  that  you  cannot  foresee, 
but  which  reflection  tells  you  may  come,  your  heart 
ought  to  cry  out  with  Moses,  in  a  sense  of  want  and  of 
weakness,  "//  Thy  presence  go  not  with  me,  carry  me  not 
up  hence." 

Ah,  my  friends,  could  we  rightly  estimate  the  dignity 
and  the  opportunity,  the  privilege  and  the  responsibihty 
of  the  most  uneventful  year  of  our  hves,  we  should  pro- 
foundly feel  how  insufficient  we  are,  how  unequal,  how 
unqualified,  to  face  it  without  the  presence  of  God  as  a 
continual  source  of  wisdom  and  strength.  How  much 
more  when  we  consider  the  unforeseen  dangers  and  diffi- 
culties that  may  He  in  wait  for  us  on  our  journey  into 
the  New  Year !  It  is  certain  that  for  some  of  us  there 
wiU  be  dry  and  thirsty  places  along  the  path  of  this  open- 
ing year.  Some  of  us  wiU  be  overtaken  by  storms. 
Sudden  gusts  of  temptation  will  break  upon  some  of 
us.  To  some  sorrow  and  loss  wiU  come.  Across  the 
threshold  of  some  of  our  homes  the  shadow  of  death  will 
fall — or  some  shadow  darker  stiU.  Who,  then,  would 
wilHngly  face  the  new  year  without  the  reassuring 
promise  that  God's  presence  will  go  with  him ! 

2.  But  let  us  turn  from  the  need  of  the  promise  to  the 
promise  itself.  And  let  me  say  to  you.  Christian  people, 
this  promise  which  made  the  great  Hebrew  leader  brave 
and  strong  to  face  the  future  is  yours  also.  It  is  "unto 
you  and  to  your  children,"  as  St.  Peter  testified  on  the 
day  of  Pentecost.  You  may  wTite  it  wdth  confidence 
over  the  portals  of  the  new  year:  "My  presence  shall  go 
with  you,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  The  children  of 
Israel  had  part  in  it  through  the  mediation  of  Moses, 


66  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

through  whose  intercession  their  sin  was  pardoned. 
We  have  part  in  it  through  the  mediation  of  Christ, 
our  great  High  Priest  and  Advocate. 

It  is  of  the  very  essence  and  purpose  of  the  gospel  to 
declare  to  men  the  constant  care  and  love  and  grace  of 
God  to  His  children,  to  give  assurance  of  His  tender 
mercy,  to  press  upon  men  the  wondrous  fact  that  God 
is  near  us,  that  God  is  with  us,  if  we  will  only  open  our 
eyes  to  see  Him  and  our  hearts  to  receive  Him — with 
us  to  redeem,  to  save,  to  defend,  to  guide,  to  comfort. 
Oh,  when  I  remember  that  I  am  commissioned  to  de- 
clare that  "God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His 
only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him 
should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life,"  I  feel  that 
I  may  say  to  every  man  whom  my  voice  can  reach, 
"The  love,  the  care,  the  grace,  the  presence,  the  guid- 
ance, of  God  is  yours  if  you  will  only  receive  it."  It  is 
not  for  this  man  or  for  that  man;  it  is  not  for  a  chosen 
few;  it  is  for  all.  Its  light  is  flooding  the  world.  If  it  is 
not  filling  your  soul,  it  is  because  you  are  keeping  the 
windows  shut.  Oh,  on  this  blessed  Lord's  Day,  the 
first  of  the  new  year,  arise  and  throw  open  the  windows 
of  your  soul,  and  let  in  the  light  of  Bethlehem.  It  is  a 
heavenly  radiance.  It  is  a  reflex  of  the  wondrous  In- 
carnation, of  the  great  fact  that  "God  was  manifest  in 
the  flesh,"  that  "  God  was  in  Christ,"  that  "  God  was  in 
Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself,"  drawing 
men  to  Him  by  the  cords  of  love — that  amazing  love 
that  was  equal  to  Gethsemane  and  Calvary. 

It  is  in  the  light  of  the  Nativity  that  I  would  have  you 
think  of  this  great  word  of  comfort  and  strength:  "My 
presence  shall  go  with  thee,  and  I  will  give  thee  rest."  I 
will  not  speak  to  professed  Christians  only,  I  will  speak 


A  Talisman  for  the  New  Year  67 

to  every  man  for  whom  Christ  was  born,  and  surely  He 
was  God's  gift  to  us  all  without  exception  and  without 
distinction.  I  must  look  upon  every  one  of  you  as  a 
possible  Christian,  as  a  Christian  potentially,  as  a  Chris- 
tian in  God's  wish  and  desire,  since  He  is  the  Father  of 
us  all.  And  so  I  would  fain  hope  that,  even  as  I  speak, 
you  who  have  not  regarded  yourselves  as  Christians 
would  awake  as  from  sleep  and  say,  "  I  may  be  a  Chris- 
tian. I  will  be  a  Chiistian.  I  will  just  open  my  win- 
dow and  let  in  the  hght  of  God's  love  and  grace,  which 
He  has  given  to  me  as  weU  as  to  any  saint  who  hves  or 
has  ever  lived  on  the  earth."  If  only  this  hope  might 
be  reahzed,  then  the  hght  and  the  help  of  this  precious 
promise  of  my  text  would  shine  into  every  one  of  your 
hearts.  Then  there  would  not  be  one  among  you  all 
who  could  not  say  to  himself,  "God's  presence  will  go 
with  me  through  the  new  year,  and  He  Himself  wiU  give 
me  rest. "  For,  oh,  this  gospel  is  as  free  as  the  air;  this 
promise  is  as  cathohc  as  the  world!  And  now  let  me 
say  to  whomsoever  this  promise  does  come,  as  God's  own 
message,  see  that  you  enter  into  the  fulness  of  its  blessed 
meaning. 

How  is  that  meaning  deepened  and  glorified  by  the 
Incarnation?  The  presence  that  wiU  go  with  you  is  the 
presence  of  the  incarnate  Christ;  the  Son  of  Man;  the 
Son  of  God;  the  compassionate  Jesus;  the  omnipotent 
Saviour,  "able  to  save  to  the  uttermost";  able  to  be 
touched  with  a  feehng  of  our  infirmities,  who,  having 
been  Himself  tempted  in  all  points  hke  as  we  are,  is  able 
to  succor  them  that  are  tempted;  the  Christ  who  wept 
with  Mary  and  Martha;  who  healed  the  leper;  who  gave 
absolution  to  the  penitent  sinner  kneehng  in  tears  at  His 
feet;  who  opened  the  gates  of  paradise  to  the  dying  thief 


68  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

on  the  cross;  who  unlocked  the  meaning  of  the  Scrip- 
tures to  the  two  disciples  on  the  way  to  Enunaus;  who 
restored  Simon  Peter  after  his  triple  denial;  and  who 
gave  the  Holy  Spirit  to  His  disciples  on  the  day  of  Pen- 
tecost. It  is  He  who  says  to  every  loving,  loyal  heart 
to-day,  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway. "  "  My  'presence  shall 
go  with  thee." 

That  presence  is  not,  indeed,  a  visible  or  a  material 
presence,  nor  is  it  certified  by  supernatural  appear- 
ances. We  see  no  pillar  of  cloud  leading  us  on  by  day, 
nor  pillar  of  fire  by  night.  We  have  no  Urim  and  Thum- 
mim.  We  have  no  Shechinah  resting  in  glory  over  the 
mercy-seat.  No  heaven-kindled  fire  burns  on  our  altars. 
The  glory  of  the  Lord  does  not  clothe  itself  for  us  in 
any  material  forms  that  appeal  to  the  senses. 

No ;  for  the  gospel  of  Christ  is  a  spiritual  dispensation 
that  appeals  to  the  soul,  not  to  the  senses.  Christ  re- 
veals Himself  by  His  Spirit.  He  kindles  a  flame  of 
heavenly  love  on  the  altar  of  our  hearts.  He  gives  us 
the  witness  of  the  Holy  Spirit  with  our  spirit  that  we  are 
the  children  of  God.  He  produces  in  our  hearts  and 
lives  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  "love,  joy,  peace,  long- 
suifering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meeloiess,  tem- 
perance" (Gal.  V.  22,  23),  and  these  are  the  sure  wit- 
nesses of  His  presence.  And  then  He  gives  us  in  His 
sacraments  the  external  signs  and  seals  of  His  presence. 
The  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  is  in  particular  a 
pledge  and  assurance  of  His  presence  among  us.  In  it 
He  draws  peculiarly  near  to  the  believing,  loving  dis- 
ciple. There  is  a  real,  but  a  spiritual,  presence  of  Christ 
in  this  sacrament  of  our  redemption — all  the  more  glori- 
ous, aU  the  more  precious,  aU  the  more  satisfying,  be- 
cause not  material  or  sensuous. 


A  TaKsman  for  the  New  Year  69 

"  Here,  O  my  Lord,  I  see  Thee  face  to  face, 

Here  would  I  touch  and  handle  things  unseen. 
Here  grasp  with  firmer  hand  eternal  grace, 
And  all  my  weariness  upon  Thee  lean." 

Dear  brethren,  I  can  frame  no  better  or  higher  wish 
for  you  all  in  the  new  year  than  that  you  may  have  the 
reahzation  of  God's  presence  going  with  you  as  your 
companion  and  comforter  and  guide  through  all  its  days 
and  all  its  experiences.  You  cannot  lose  your  way  with 
that  presence,  like  the  pillar  of  cloud  and  fire,  showing 
you  the  right  path.  You  cannot  faint  or  fail  with  that 
presence  girding  you  with  strength  day  by  day.  You 
cannot  be  cast  down  by  the  losses  or  failures  of  Ufe  with 
that  presence  to  uphold  and  cheer  you.  You  cannot 
be  overwhelmed  by  affliction  or  by  sorrow  with  that 
presence  to  comfort  and  console  you.  You  cannot,  if 
you  sin,  continue  in  your  sin  with  that  presence  silently 
rebuking  and  shaming  you.  Neither  sin  nor  sorrow, 
neither  aflSiction  nor  persecution,  neither  tribulation 
nor  distress,  will  be  able  to  overcome  you  while  the 
presence  of  Christ  is  yours,  and  you  may  joyfully  and 
confidently  believe  that  you  wiU  come  off  conqueror  and 
more  than  conqueror  over  whatever  fate  may  overtake 
you. 

^. Would  to  God  I  could  kindle  every  soul  in  this  as- 
sembly into  a  flame  of  fervent  desire  and  prayer  for  the 
realization  of  that  unseen  presence  of  Christ!  The  as- 
surance and  the  promise  only  came  to  Moses  as  the  re- 
sult of  prayer  and  supphcation.  He  deeply  felt  his 
need,  his  insufflciency  for  his  work,  for  the  dangers  and 
difficulties  of  the  wilderness  journey,  and  cried  out  with 
passionate  longing,  "If  Thy  presence  go  not  with  me, 
carry  us  not  up  hence."    Would  that  I  could  awake  in 


70  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

every  breast  a  similar  sense  of  need,  of  weakness,  of  in- 
sufficiency for  the  journey  of  life!  "Arise  and  eat," 
said  the  angel  to  Elijah  in  the  desert,  "arise  and  eat, 
for  the  journey  is  too  great  for  thee."  And  so  to-day, 
as  God's  messenger,  as  your  pastor,  as  your  friend,  as 
one  who  for  years  has  gone  in  and  out  among  you,  bear- 
ing you  on  my  heart,  watching  for  your  souls  as  one 
that  must  give  account,  I  point  you  to  yonder  blessed 
feast  of  the  divine  love,  perpetual  witness  of  His 
sacrifice  for  you,  perpetual  assurance  of  His  fatherly 
love  and  care  for  you,  perpetual  invitation  to  come  to 
Him  for  strength  and  grace,  and  I  say,  Oh,  my  fellow 
men,  fellow  travellers  through  this  desert  of  time,  arise 
and  eat  of  the  heavenly  food,  for  the  journey  of  life  is 
too  great  for  you;  you  cannot  face  it  in  your  own 
strength;  you  cannot  bear  the  burden  of  its  heat  and 
its  cold,  its  dust  and  its  strife,  its  conflict  and  its  temp- 
tation, without  the  sense  of  the  presence  of  a  divine 
Friend  and  Counsellor  and  Saviour.  The  poet  right 
nobly  sings: 

"  A  sacred  burden  is  this  life  ye  bear; 
Look  on  it,  lift  it,  bear  it  solemnly; 
Stand  up  and  walk  beneath  it  steadfastly ; 
Fan  not  for  sorrow,  falter  not  for  sin, 
But  onward,  upward,  till  the  goal  ye  win! " 

f^  But  believe  me,  my  friends,  you  cannot  bear  life's 
burden,  you  cannot  walk  beneath  it  steadfastly,  you  can- 
not rise  superior  to  sorrow,  you  cannot  win  the  goal, 
unless  you  lay  hold  of  the  divine  grace  and  help  which 
is  freely  offered  you  in  the  gospel.  God  waits  to  be 
gracious;  but  you  must  lay  hold  of  His  grace.  He  is 
more  ready  to  hear  than  you  are  to  pray ;  but  you  must 
pray.    He  will  give  you  His  presence  if  you  long  for  it 


A  Talisman  for  the^New^^Year  71 

and  ask  for  it;  but  He  will  not  be  an  unwelcome  guest 
in  your  hearts. 

Oh,  then,  dear  brethren,  let  us  beseech  Him  to  be  our 
Fellow  traveller,  our  ever-present  Companion  and  Com- 
forter and  Guide  through  this  new  year.  We  need  not 
fear  for  the  answer.  He  will  say  to  us  as  He  did  to 
Moses,  ''My  presence  shall  go  with  thee,  and  I  will  give 
thee  rest.". 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  MORNING 

FOR   THE   FIRST   SUNDAY   AFTER   EPIPHANY 

"  Watchman,  what  of  the  night  ?     ',  Watchman,  what  of  the' night  t 
.  ,  .  The  morning  Cometh." — Isaiahxxi.il. 

These  words  of  the  ancient  prophet  fell  upon  the  ears 
of  men  seven  centuries  before  Christ — twenty-six  cen- 
turies ago.  They  voice  the  anxious  expectancy  of  a 
reary  world,  and  the  glad  answer  of  faith  and  hope. 
And  this  not  once  only,  not  in  some  one  pre-eminent 
crisis  of  the  world's  experience;  but  again  and  again 
through  the  changing  times  and  seasons. 

As  the  generations  of  men  have  cried  out  repeatedly 
in  the  night  of  their  sorrow  and  suffering,  or  of  their 
doubt  and  fear,  through  the  long  ages,  "Watchman, 
what  of  the  night  f  "  there  has  been  heard  in  clear  tones 
a  joyful  voice  making  reply,  "  The  morning  cometh. " 

And,  men  and  brethren,  that  voice  of  hope  has  pro- 
ceeded from  the  Bible,  and  from  the  Bible  alone.  No 
other  book  has  been  able — scarce  any  other  has  even 
attempted — to  inspire  man  with  the  hope  of  a  morning 
whose  radiance  shall  swallow  up  night  and  darkness  in 
victory. 

There  are  those  who  despise  the  ruggedness  and  sim- 
plicity of  the  holy  scriptures,  preferring  the  classic  liter- 
ature of  Greece  and  Rome,  or  that  of  the  modern  world, 
to  these  books  of  ancient  Israel.     "Are  not  Abana  and 

7a 


The  Gospel  of  the  Morning  73 

Pharpar,  rivers  of  Damascus,  better  than  all  the  waters 
of  Israel?"  But  however  clear  and  sparkling  Abana 
and  Pharpar  may  be,  they  have  no  power,  such  as  this 
despised  river  of  Jordan  possesses,  to  heal  a  man  of  his 
leprosy.  Plato  and  Aristotle,  Homer  and  Hesiod  Taci- 
tus and  Seneca,  Racine  and  Boileau,  Shakspeare  and 
Dante,  Carlyle  and  Emerson,  may  dehght  the  taste  and 
stimulate  the  intellect,  but  they  have  no  power  to  in- 
spire mankind  with  a  bright  and  unconquerable  hope. 
They  bring  to  the  soul  no  message  that  "the  morning 
cometh."  That,  my  friends,  is  the  message  of  this  old 
book  which  we  Christians  believe  to  be  the  Book  of  God. 
And  it  is  a  message  of  power.  It  speaks  to  the  heart  with 
all  its  pristine  authority  even  in  our  day,  when  so  many 
clever  men  are  attacking  its  authenticity,  and  pihng  up 
hypotheses  concerning  the  origin  and  structure  of  its 
several  parts.  The  plain  Christian  man  need  not  be 
shaken  or  disturbed  by  all  the  din  of  warfare  between 
the  critics.  He  has  no  theories  to  maintain,  either  of 
structure,  or  date,  or  authorship,  or  inspira,tion;  he  only 
knows  that  a  light  shines  here  that  sliines  nowhere  else, 
and  that  somehow  it  penetrates  his  soul.  To  all  the 
attacks  of  the  critics  he  simply  rephes:  "Why,  herein 
is  a  marvellous  thing,  that  ye  know  not  from  whence 
this  book  is;  ye  deny  its  divine  authority,  and  y^t  it 
hath  opened  mine  eyes! "  Yes,  the  Bible  is  full  of  light. 
It  glows  with  the  hues  of  the  morning.  It  brings  to  a 
weary  world  the  cheery  message,  "  The  morning  cometh. " 

1.  Let  us  look  first  at  the  application  of  the  words  of 
our  text  to  that  far-off  time  when  they  were  uttered  by 
Isaiah. 

He  dramatically  represents  the  people  anxiously  call- 
ing from  below  to  the  watchman  on  his  tower  of  obser- 


74  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

vation,  "Watchman^  what  of  the  night?  Watchman, 
what  of  the  night?"  For  long,  long  ages  the  darkness 
of  night  had  been  upon  the  world.  Men  had  groped 
after  God  and  truth  as  the  blind  man  gropes  for  the 
wall.  They  had  hoped  and  waited  for  the  dawn  of  day. 
The  primeval  promise  of  a  Messiah  who  should  bruise 
the  serpent's  head  had  shone  like  a  star  in  the  sky;  but 
still  the  night  was  upon  the  land. 

Had  the  God-appointed  watchman  any  tidings  of  hope? 
He  was  the  prophet,  the  seer  to  whose  vision  the  future 
might  be  revealed.  Could  he  then  from  his  lofty  watch- 
tower  see  any  signs  of  approaching  day?  Yes,  cries  the 
prophet,  "the  morning  cometh."  Hope  lies  like  a  band 
of  golden  light  on  the  far  horizon.  It  is  stiU  night,  and 
wiU  be  yet  for  a  season;  but  the  morning-star  hath  risen; 
the  day  is  surely  approaching ;  the  Sun  of  Righteousness 
will  in  due  time  arise  with  healing  in  his  wings. 

Thus  the  watchman  cheered  the  heart  of  the  people 
by  the  sure  augury  of  the  coming  day.  And  his  suc- 
cessors, a  long  line  of  men  of  God,  inspired  prophets  and 
seers,  took  up  the  strain  and  gave  like  assurance  of  the 
fulfilment  of  the  ancient  prophecy,  till,  "in  the  fulness 
of  time/'  the  day  broke  at  last  and  the  shadows  began 
to  flee  away,  when  the  Son  of  God  became  incarnate 
and  brought  to  mankind  the  hght  and  the  hope  for 
which  they  had  waited  so  long. 

Yes,  when  the  angels'  hymn,  the  first  "Gloria  in  Ex- 
celsis,".  floated  over  the  hills  of  Judaea,  then  the  night 
was  over  indeed,  and  "the  morning"  had  broken  upon 
the  world.  And  then  was  fulfilled  that  other  word  of 
prophecy :  "  The  people  which  sat  in  darkness  saw  great 
Hght;  and  to  them  which  sat  in  the  region  and  shadow 
of  death,  light  is  sprung  up.'.' 


The  Gospel  of  the  Morning  75 

2.  Turn  we  now  from  the  ancient  to  the  modern 
world,  to  our  own  day  and  generation,  and  let  us  ask  if 
the  question  and  answer  of  the  text  have  any  signifi- 
cance for  us?  It  has,  I  think,  very  striking  significance 
from  several  points  of  view. 

(a)  Those  who  have  the  welfare  of  the  race  at  heart 
may  reasonably  and  naturally  address  this  question  to 
the  student  of  the  progress  of  man,  "  Watchman,  what  of 
the  night  f"  We  who  are  down  in  the  plain  of  every-day 
life,  in  the  din  and  dust  of  the  roadway,  see  much  that 
is  dark  and  discouraging.  It  seems  to  us  still  night,  and 
very  dark  night  too.  We  look  abroad  and  we  see  ignor- 
ance and  superstition  still  weighing  heavily  upon  the 
eyes  of  men  over  wide  areas  of  the  earth.  We  see  in- 
justice, inhumanity,  and  oppression  still  widely  preva- 
lent; and  even  in  the  most  civilized  lands  we  see  vice  and 
crime  painfully  common,  while  social  inequality  and  in- 
dustrial wrongs  cry  aloud  in  the  streets.  And  there- 
fore we  ask  of  you,  O  student  of  civilization  and  progress, 
what  is  your  outlook?  Can  you.  from  your  vantage 
ground,  see  any  light  on  the  horizon?  "Watchman, 
what  of  the  night?'' 

Now  the  student  of  the  social  and  moral  progress  of 
mankind  does  not  claim  inspiration,  or  the  power  of 
prophetic  prevision.  But  nevertheless  he  gives  no  hesi- 
tating answer  to  the  question  we  ask.  He  answers  with 
the  confidence  of  a  certain  hope  that  the  night  is  passing 
away.  His  studies  of  history  have  made  it  plain  that 
the  race  has  made  enormous  progress  since  the  rehgion 
of  Christ  came  into  the  world.  The  sum  of  injustice, 
oppression,  and  cruelty  has  been  enormously  reduced. 
The  area  of  tyranny  and  despotism  has  been  immensely 
contracted.     Many  awful  wrongs  and  abuses  have  been 


76  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

abolished;  many  others  have  been  abated.  For  in- 
stances :  In  the  zenith  of  the  power  and  glory  of  Roman 
civilization  the  father  possessed  the  power  of  hfe  and 
death  over  his  children;  woman  occupied  a  position  of 
contempt  and  degradation,  as  man's  slave,  not  his  help- 
meet; slavery  and  serfdom,  in  their  most  cruel  forms, 
went  unrebuked;  infanticide  was  generally  practised 
without  a  blush  and  without  a  pang  of  conscience ;  cruel 
and  licentious  sports  flourished  under  the  patronage  of 
the  state;  unnatural  vices  held  sway  unchallenged.  In 
short,  the  Roman  race  was  being  "eaten  away  by  vices 
and  corruption  beyond  any  hope  of  redemption."  Taci- 
tus depicts  this  condition  with  sombre  eloquence,  un- 
relieved by  any  glimmering  of  hope. 

Now  if  one  compares  the  state  of  the  world  to-day 
with  its  state  under  Nero  or  Domitian,  or  even  Trajan 
or  Marcus  Aurelius,  it  may  truly  be  said  that  it  is  the 
contrast  between  night  and  day. 

In  truth,  the  last  nineteen  centuries  exhibit,  on  the 
whole,  a  gradual  evolution  from  darkness  to  light  in 
the  condition  of  the  peoples — chiefly,  of  course,  those 
within  the  boundaries  of  Christendom. 

If  we  focus  our  study  upon  the  century  which  is  so 
lately  ended,  we  shall  find  that  it  has  been  the  most  won- 
derful era  in  history  in  the  triumphs  it  has  achieved  for 
liberty  and  humanity,  for  justice  and  righteousness,  for 
sympathy  and  charity. 

For  reasons  such  as  these  the  student  of  human  prog- 
ress must  needs  give  a  hopeful  answer  to  our  question. 
The  advance  may  seem  slow.  Many  evils  remain. 
Some  seem  impregnably  intrenched.  But  it  is  not  so. 
Forces  are  at  work  which  must  weaken  and  disintegrate 
their  power.    Evolution  works  slowly  and  by  indefi- 


The  Gospel  of  the  Morning  77 

nitely  small  increments;  but  it  works  surely,  and  the 
end  is  never  doubtful. 

Many  a  night  of  darkness  and  despair  has  passed 
away  in  the  long  history  of  man,  and  many  a  morning 
has  broken  with  its  rosy  light  upon  the  world.  And 
still  the  message  of  hope  and  cheer  comes  from  the 
watchman  to  the  anxious  heart  of  the  people,  "The 
morning  cometh. " 

(h)  The  question  of  our  text  may  be  asked,  however, 
from  a  somewhat  different  point  of  view.  It  may  be 
addressed  to  the  Christian  thinker,  whose  thought  and 
inquiry  are  directed  to  the  progress  of  Christianity 
among  men.  Here,  too,  to  the  superficial  observer, 
there  is  much  to  discourage.  So  many  vast  regions  of 
the  earth  still  he  under  the  dark  shadow  of  heathen 
superstition;  so  many  millions  of  our  fellow  men  still 
bow  down  to  stocks  and  stones,  or  obey  the  sombre 
fanaticism  of  Islam.  And  even  in  Christian  lands  prog- 
ress seems  so  slow,  and  the  Christian  ideal  so  far  from 
reahzation,  while  large  numbers  who  were  nurtured  in 
the  Christian  Church  have  suffered  an  echpse  of  faith. 

It  is  natural,  then,  that  men  should  ask  with  some 
anxiety,  ^'Watchman,  what  of  the  night f  Watchman, 
what  of  the  night  ?  " 

To  this  question,  in  this  form,  it  seems  to  me,  my 
brethren,  the  earnest  student  of  the  phenomena  of  con- 
temporary Christianity  must  return  a  hopeful  answer. 
When  from  the  present  heathen  darkness  we  turn  to  the 
darkness  of  an  hundred  years  ago  we  are  filled  with 
wonder  at  the  progress  that  has  been  made.  Empires 
that  were  then  fast  closed  and  barred  against  the  Chris- 
tian religion  are  now  everywhere  open  to  its  influence. 
The  high  walls  that  shut  in  China  and  Japan  have  faUen 


78  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

almost  as  suddenly  as  the  walls  of  Jericho  at  the  blast 
of  the  trumpet  of  Joshua;  India  and  Africa  have  been 
opened  to  the  gospel;  the  isles  of  the  sea  have,  many  of 
them,  been  actually  conquered  by  the  armies  of  the 
Cross. 

Yes,  the  light  of  the  morning  has  broken  on  many  a 
dark  shore  and  penetrated  to  many  a  strong  fastness  of 
heathenism  in  our  time.  He  who  widely  and  wisely 
scans  the  horizon  must  see  that  the  darkness  is  doomed 
and  that  "the  morning  cometh." 

Christianity  holds  the  future.  Modern  civilization, 
modern  science,  modern  progress,  in  all  its  higher  forms, 
is  the  possession  of  Christendom,  as  it  is  the  product  of 
the  Christian  spirit  at  work  among  men.  The  nations 
that  are  ruhng  the  world  are  Christian  nations;  and  the 
heathen  nations  are  beginning  to  recognize  that  these 
dominant  races  owe  their  power  and  their  pre-eminence 
to  the  ideas  which  Christianity  has  propagated. 

And  then  those  two  nations  which  hold  the  widest 
dominion  and  possess  the  greatest  enterprise,  whose 
commerce  covers  the  seas,  whose  combined  navies  com- 
mand the  waters  of  the  globe,  whose  ideas  are  the  most 
progressive,  whose  flags  are  everywhere  and  always  the 
symbols  of  liberty  and  law  and  order,  of  justice  also, 
and  humanity  and  charity — these  are  pre-eminently  the 
missionary  nations,  the  nations  who  love  and  honor  the 
Bible,  and  draw  from  it  their  deepest  inspirations  of 
faith  and  life. 

It  is  in  the  Hght  of  such  considerations  that  the  Chris- 
tian thinker  must  be  an  optimist  as  he  looks  into  the 
future.  He  recognizes  the  echpse  of  faith  which  our 
century  has  witnessed  among  many  cultivated  people; 
but  he  anticipates  that  that  eclipse  will  pass  away  from 


The  Gospel  of  the  Morning  79 

the  mind  and  heart  of  the  men  of  the  twentieth  century 
— anticipates  it  as  confidently  as  the  astronomers  ex- 
pected the  dark  shadow  which  fell  upon  the  earth  in  the 
eclipse  of  the  28th  of  May,  1900,  to  pass  away  from 
the  earth's  surface.  Nay,  already  it  is  passing.  Mate- 
rialism rules  no  more  among  men  of  science;  she  is  a 
discrowned  queen. 

Ah,  yes,  my  friends,  let  no  man's  heart  be  cast  down, 
"  The  morning  cometh. "  To  our  eyes  the  shadows  are 
very  slow  in  retreating  before  the  shafts  of  light;  but  re 
member  that  with  the  Lord  "a  thousand  years  are  as 
one  day."  He  counts  not  time  as  we  do.  He  works 
slowly  by  our  human  standards  of  time;  but  He  works 
surely.  Meanwhile  the  great  world  is  turning  unceas- 
ingly towards  the  light,  the  darkness  is  fleeing  away,  and 
the  hght  of  the  eternal  morning  is  breaking  on  the  dis- 
tant hills.   . 

(c)  I  turn,  in  conclusion,  to  look  for  a  moment  at  a 
more  personal  application  of  the  question  of  the  text. 

There  are  burdened,  anxious  souls  not  a  few — some 
there  are  among  us  to-day — around  whom  the  shadows 
have  gathered,  and  who.  out  of  the  darkness  of  their 
hves,  cry  out  to  the  watchmen  on  the  walls  of  Zion 
"  What  of  the  night  f     What  of  the  night  f  " 

Will  the  shadows  at  last  flee  away?  Will  the  dark- 
ness that  shuts  us  in  be  banished?  Will  severed  ties  be 
knit  again  in  a  better  land?  Will  faded  hopes  live 
again?  Will  the  broken  threads  of  life  be  caught  up  in 
another  sphere?  Will  ideals,  now  only  half  realized, 
nay,  only  faintly  beginning  to  come  to  fruitage,  be  one 
day  fulfilled?  And  will  "those  angel  faces"  which  we 
have  loved  and  lost,  "smile"  upon  us  again? 

"  If  I  only  knew  I  should  meet  my  mother  again,  and 


8o  The  Gkjspel  in  the  Christian  Year 

that  she  would  know  me !  "  wrote  a  sorrowing  girl  to  me 
the  other  day, 

O  friends,  will  you  receive  the  Epiphany  message  to- 
day from  the  watchman?  It  is  a  message  full  of  hope: 
"  The  morning  cometh."  And  in  the  light  of  that  morn- 
ing sorrow  and  sighing  shall  flee  away ;  there  shall  be  no 
more  pain,  and  God  shall  wipe  away  aU  tears;  there 
shall  be  no  more  death  or  decay;  there  shall  be  no  more 
curse;  and  there  shall  be  no  night  there. 

This  is  the  blessed  hope,  radiant  with  immortality, 
of  which  the  Holy  Scriptures  give  us  assurance.  It  is  a 
weU-grounded  hope,  it  is  the  very  anchor  of  the  soul, 
amid  all  the  storms  and  tempests  of  life;  it  is  sure  and 
steadfast,  and  it  entereth  into  that  within  the  veil. 

0  Christian,  arise  and  let  in  the  light  of  this  immortal 
hope!  The  God  whom  you  serve  is  He  "who  turneth 
the  shadow  of  death  into  the  morning."  Jesus  Christ 
has  conquered  death.  He  will  swallow  up  death  in  vic- 
tory. What  mean  we  then  to  sorrow  as  others  who 
have  no  hope?  We  are  the  children  of  the  day.  What 
have  we  to  do  with  sadness  and  darkness  and  depression 
and  doubt?  We  know  that  though  weeping  may  en- 
dure for  a  night  joy  cometh  in  the  morning.  We  know 
that  aU  things  work  together  for  good  to  them  that 
love  God.  We  know  that  our  Master  is  coming  again 
to  scatter  forever  the  shades  of  night  and  to  flood  the 
world  with  the  light  of  the  Resurrection  morning. 

Yes,  the  watchman's  glad  message  is  for  us  to-day: 
"  The  Morning  Cometh.  " 


THE  HOLY  ESTATE  OF  MATRIMONY 

FOR  TEtE  SECOND  SUNDAY  AFTER   EPIPHANY 

"Wives,  submit  yourselves  unto  your  own  husbands,  as  unto  the 
Lord.  For  the  husband  is  the  head  of  the  wife,  even  as  Christ 
is  the  head  of  the  church:  and  He  is  the  Saviour  of  the  body. 
Therefore  as  the  church  is  subject  unto  Christ,  so  let  the  wives 
be  to  their  own  husbands  in  every  thing.  Husbands,  love  your 
wives,  even  as  Christ  also  loved  the  church,  and  gave  Himself  for 
it;  that  He  might  sanctify  and  cleanse  it  with  the  washing  of 
water  by  the  word,  that  He  might  present  it  to  Himself  a  glori- 
ous church,  not  having  spot,  or  wrinkle,  or  any  such  thing ; 
but  that  it  should  be  holy  and  without  blemish.  So  ought 
men  to  love  their  wives  as  their  own  bodies.  He  that  loveth 
his  wife  loveth  himself.  For  no  man  ever  yet  hated  his  own 
flesh ;  but  nourisheth  and  cherisheth  it,  even  as  the  Lord  the 
church;  for  we  are  members  of  His  body,  of  His  flesh,  and 
of  His  bones.  For  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and 
mother,  and  shall  be  joined  unto  his  wife,  and  they  two  shall 
be  one  flesh.  This  is  a  great  mystery :  but  I  speak  concern^ 
ing  Christ  and  the  church. " — Eph.  v.  22-32. 

In  these  vivid  and  vigorous  sentences  the  great  apostle 
sets  forth  for  all  time  the  Christian  conception  of  mar- 
riage. It  embodies  an  ideal  almost  infinitely  exalted 
above  any  ever  propounded  by  pagan  philosophy,  or 
expressed  in  pagan  legislation;  but  it  was  only  natural 
that  this  should  be  the  case,  because — inasmuch  as  Chris- 
tianity brought  to  mankind,  through  the  Incarnation, 
a  new  and  nobler  idea  of  man  and  his  relation  to  God 

8i 


82  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

than  the  world  had  ever  known — it  was  to  be  expected 
that  its  view  of  the  relation  between  man  and  woman  in 
the  married  state  would  be  equally  exalted  above  the 
ideals  of  pagan  thought. 

In  fact  the  Christian  ideal  of  marriage  was  a  new  con- 
cept— a  fresh  creation — which  had  no  prototype  in 
any  philosophy  or  in  any  religion,  not  even  the  Jewish. 

As  regards  the  intellectual  emancipation  of  women, 
which  is  justly  reckoned  one  of  the  fruits  of  the  Christian 
religion,  that  had  its  prototypes  at  different  periods  of 
history  and  among  different  races  of  people.  Thus,  in 
the  time  of  Sappho,  600  years  before  Christ,  there  was 
a  high  degree  of  intellectual  culture  among  women  in 
some  parts  of  Greece.  "The  Lesbian  ladies  applied 
themselves  successfully  to  hterature.  They  formed 
clubs  for  the  cultivation  of  poetry  and  music.  They 
studied  the  art  of  beauty  and  sought  to  refine  metrical 
forms  and  diction."  *  And  a  century  and  a  half  later, 
in  the  age  of  Socrates,  women  successfully  cultivated 
philosophy,  and  to  such  perfection  that  that  greatest 
of  Grecian  sages  himself  sat  at  the  feet  of  one  of  them, 
Diotima  of  Mantineia,  priestess  and  Pythagorean  phi- 
losopher. 

But  this  sublime  ideal  of  the  nature  of  the  married 
state  had  no  prototype  in  pre-Christian  times.  It  was 
the  creation,  or  shall  we  say  the  revelation,  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

Roman  law  had  done  much  to  give  dignity  to  mar- 
riage, and  had  set  the  wife  and  mother  in  a  position  of 
honor,  which  found  expression  in  the  proud  title  of 
mater- jamilias;  but  underlying  aU  the  legislation  on  this 
subject  there  is  seen  a  deep  contempt  for  woman,  and 
*  Mr.  H.  T.  Thornton's  Sappho,  p.  13.j 


The  Holy  Estate  of  Matrimony  83 

there  was  no  approach  to  that  place  of  honor  which 
Christian  marriage  assigns  to  her.  She  had  no  exclu- 
sive claim  to  the  attentions  and  affections  of  her  hus- 
band. Others,  under  lower  relations  recognized  by  the 
law,  might  share  his  hfe  and  his  love.  And  then  at  best 
the  wife  was  not  the  husband's  companion  and  help- 
meet, but  his  plaything,  or  his  upper  servant,  if  not  his 
slave.  She  was  in  a  position  of  perpetual  tutelage.  Her 
husband's  power  over  her  was  absolute,  even,  under  the 
old  Roman  law,  that  of  hfe  and  death.  Her  property 
was  completely  under  his  control;  aU  her  earnings  were 
his.  She  could  not  intervene  in  the  government  of  the 
fainily.  A  child  desiring  to  marry  need  not  obtain  her 
consent.  She  had  no  power  over  her  children.  By 
marriage  she  lost  all  her  family  rights.  The  law  con- 
sidered her  as  the  sister  of  her  own  sons  and  daughters. 
It  was  in  the  code  of  Justinian,  under  the  influence  of 
the  Christian  religion,  that  all  this  was  legally  changed. 
Here  is  an  extract  from  the  Institutes :  "  It  is  worthy  of 
the  chastity  of  our  times  to  give  this  new  position  to 
women;  tutelage  of  women  must  be  done  away  with." 
Under  that  great  code  of  the  Christian  emperor  the  ab- 
solute power  of  the  husband  over  the  wife  came  to  an 
end,  and  the  ultimate  equality  of  woman  imder  the  law 
became  assured.  But  at  the  period  when  St.  Paul 
penned  this  noble  description  of  the  marriage  relation 
there  was  no  promise  of  such  reforms  in  the  laws  of  the 
empire.  Imagine  how  strange  these  words  of  his  must 
have  sounded  in  an  age  when,  as  Seneca,  his  contem- 
porary, tells  us,  many  illustrious  and  high-born  women 
reckoned  their  years  not  by  the  nmnber  of  the  consuls 
(the  usual  way),  but  by  the  number  of  their  husbands, 
and  when  the  great  satirist  of  the  time  could  point  to  the 


84  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

fashionable  woman  who  had  married  eight  husbands  in 
five  years!  It  was  indeed  the  age  of  deepest  moral 
degradation  in  Rome,  when  even  the  most  illustrious 
philosophers  and  moralists,  e.g.,  Cicero,  put  away  their 
wives  and  took  others  at  pleasure,  and  with  no  appear- 
ance of  compunction.  Into  this  reeking  mass  of  moral 
corruption — into  this  age  which  had  lost  even  the  dim 
perception  that  once  prevailed  of  a  certain  decency  and 
dignity  which  belonged  to  the  marriage  relation — came 
the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  holding  up  this  sublime  ideal 
of  the  nature  of  marriage.  My  brethren,  nearly  nine- 
teen centuries  have  passed  since  then.  The  world  has 
made  great  strides  in  knowledge,  in  civilization,  in 
science,  in  morals;  great  abuses  have  been  done  away; 
great  social  wrongs  have  been  recognized,  denounced, 
and  abolished;  great  reforms  have  been  accomplished; 
both  society  and  the  individual  have  made  great  prog- 
ress in  many  different  directions, — ^but  the  world  has 
never  attained  to  the  realization  of  the  Christian  stand- 
ard of  marriage.  The  ideal  which  the  Christian  apostle 
held  up  to  men  in  the  first  age  of  our  era  continues  the 
highest  ideal  known  to  the  world.  Man's  progress  has 
not  yet  caught  up  with  it — alas!  even  the  most  ad- 
vanced and  highly  civilized  communities  still  fall  un- 
speakably short  of  its  realization.  And  to-day,  here  in 
this  great,  free  republic,  there  is  perhaps  no  one  infiu- 
ence  that  society  more  sorely  and  sadly  needs  than  to 
be  brought  under  the  ennobling,  purifying  influence  of 
that  divine  ideal  of  the  relation  which  ought  to  exist, 
which  God  meant  should  exist,  which  by  the  principles 
of  the  Cliristian  religion  must  exist  between  a  man  and 
a  woman  who  are  united  in  the  bonds  of  matrimony.  I 
ask  you  then  to  look  with  me  at  this  divine  ideal. 


The]Holy  Estate  of  Matrimony  85 

1.  Observe  in  the  first  place  how  high  a  value  Christ 
set  upon  marriage.  St.  Paul's  lofty  conception  was  de- 
rived from  Christ,  and  we  see  that  divine  Teacher  tak- 
ing up  that  relation,  consecrating  it,  glorifying  it.  Men 
held  it  a  human  relation;  He  shows  that  it  is  of  divine 
origin  and  appointment,  and  that  it  is  a  sacred  relation, 
having  the  seal  of  the  divine  approval  and  the  token  of 
the  divine  blessing. 

There  is  no  natural  or  necessary  impurity  in  the  rela- 
tion. No,  it  was  instituted  by  God  in  the  time  of  man's 
innocency.  It  was  God  who  gave  Eve  to  Adam.  It 
was  God  who  joined  them  together  in  holy  wedlock. 
And  it  is  still  God  who  sanctions  and  blesses  the  ordi- 
nance. 

Thus  Christ's  teaching  was  equally  removed  from  as- 
ceticism and  from  sensuahty,  both  of  which  degrade 
marriage,  the  one  by  making  it  a  merely  physical  rela- 
tion, the  other  by  stripping  it  of  its  divine  sanction  and 
its  spiritual  significance.  Christ  and  His  apostles 
taught  men  that  the  body  was  "  the  temple  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  and  that  human  life  was  to  be  consecrated  in 
all  its  relations  to  God,  who  made  the  body  as  well  as 
the  soul,  and  whom  man  was  to  glorify  both  in  the  for- 
mer and  in  the  latter.  And  so  the  evangehsts  show  us 
Jesus  rejoicing  with  the  wedding-guests  at  Cana,  as  well 
as  weeping  with  Mary  and  Martha  at  the  grave  of  Laz- 
arus. 

2.  Take  note,  also,  that  St.  Paul  has  so  exalted  a  con- 
ception of  the  relation  between  husband  and  wife  that 
he  does  not  hesitate  to  compare  it  to  the  bond  between 
Christ  and  His  Church.  "The  husband,"  he  says,  "is 
the  head  of  the  wife,  as  Christ  also  is  the  head  of  the 
Ghurch.'i     "Husbands  love  your  wives,  even  as  Christ 


86  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

also  loved  the  Church  and  gave  Himself  for  it."  And 
then  he  adds,  "This  is  a  great  mystery;  but  I  speak  con- 
cerning Christ  and  the  Church." 

This  was  a  conception  of  marriage  never  broached 
before  by  any  teacher  or  sage  or  lawgiver.  It  was,  in 
fact,  a  new  revelation.  Christianity  thus  revealed  to 
man  a  beauty  and  a  glory  and  a  sanctity  in  the  married 
state  which  had  not  hitherto  been  dreamed  of.  Men 
had  looked  upon  marriage  as  a  physical  relation,  for 
mutual  helpfulness  and  companionship  and  pleasure. 
They  had  held  it,  at  the  highest,  as  a  civil  contract. 
Christ  teaches  them  that  it  is  much  more  than  this — 
something  of  nobler  and  deeper  significance.  It  is  a 
union  of  both  mind  and  soul  and  body.  In  its  ideal 
form  it  is  a  mystical  union,  binding  the  two  lives  and 
the  two  hearts  into  one  indissoluble  whole,  having 
something  of  the  tenderness,  and  the  sanctity,  and  the 
divinity  of  the  bond  between  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and 
His  Church.  "The  twain  shall  be  one  flesh";  yes,  but 
more,  they  shall  be  one  soul  and  one  life,  and  almost  one 
personality.  The  purpose  of  marriage,  then,  is  not 
only  or  chiefly  the  perpetuation  of  the  human  race,  but 
the  building  of  a  home  for  the  moral  and  intellectual 
culture  of  the  race,  and,  above  and  beyond  that  also, 
the  creation  of  a  mystical  union  between  two  human 
beings,  male  and  female,  whose  natures  are  comple- 
mentary one  to  the  other,  so  that  their  lives  shall  flow 
in  one  channel  and  mutually  help  and  cheer  and  inspire 
each  other  in  the  duties  and  pursuits  of  this  mortal  state. 

3.  Yet  another  feature  in  this  Christian  ideal  of  mar- 
riage: It  can  only  be  fully  realized  between  a  man  and 
a  woman  who  are  one  in  the  faith  and  service  of  God. 
It  may  be  approximated,  but  realized  it  can  never  be 


The  Holy  Estate  of  Matrimony  87 

except  between  two  souls  that  are  united  also  in  the 
bonds  of  a  common  faith.  We  cannot  doubt  that  the 
apostle  has  in  mind  as  the  ideal  of  marriage  a  Christian 
marriage — the  union  of  two  souls  in  the  love  of  Christ 
and  in  the  common  hope  of  immortality.  The  unity 
and  the  sanctity  which  are  elements  of  marriage  can 
only  be  fully  realized  when  husband  and  wife  are  under 
the  influence  of  those  great  truths  which  find  their  high- 
est expression  in  the  religion  of  Christ.  If  there  is  dis- 
cord here,  in  these  deep  undertones  of  life  and  being,  the 
di\dne  harmony  of  a  perfect  marriage  must  be  unattain- 
able. This  is  why  the  apostle  gives  the  earnest  warn- 
ing to  his  converts:  "Be  not  unequally  yoked  together 
with  unbehevers." 

Ah,  how  generally  this  requisite  for  a  happy,  for  an 
ideal  marriage  is  altogether  overlooked  or  forgotten! 
Men  and  women  enter  into  this  solemn  and  holy  rela- 
tion of  matrimony  without  giving  a  thought  to  the  in- 
quiry whether  they  are  congenial  on  the  greatest  of  all 
subjects,  that  which  touches  the  deepest  springs  of  be- 
ing, that  which  most  vitally  affects  the  development  of 
character — the  faith  and  fear  and  love  of  God.  Yet 
if  one  is  a  behever  and  the  other  an  unbehever,  if  one 
holds  fast  the  hope  full  of  immortahty  and  the  other 
has  no  such  hope,  if  one  seeks  to  govern  his  life  by  the 
will  of  God  and  the  other  by  self-will,  if  one  reverences 
the  Holy  Scriptures  and  the  Lord's  day  and  the  Lord's 
house,  and  the  other  does  not,  how  many  of  the  strong- 
est influences  that  make  for  unity  and  harmony  and 
closest  fellowship  will  be  lacking,  how  many  occasions 
of  disagreement  must  inevitably  arise,  and  how  difficult 
must  be  the  task  of  realizing  either  the  unity  or  the 
sanctity  of  marriage ! 


88  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

4.  But  let  us  go  on  to  notice  that  one  of  the  elements 
in  the  apostle's  ideal  of  marriage  is  the  subjection  of 
the  wife  to  the  husband.  He  says:  "The  husband  is 
the  head  of  the  wife  as  Christ  also  is  the  Head  of  the 
Church."  "As  the  Church  is  subject  to  Christ,  so  let 
the  wives  also  be  to  their  husbands  in  everything." 

This  primacy  and  authority  of  the  husband  is  an  es- 
sential element  in  the  divine  ideal  of  marriage.  It  is 
essential  also  to  the  highest  happiness  and  harmony  of 
the  married  life.  Accordingly  the  vow  of  obedience  is 
one  of  the  marriage  vows  required  by  the  Church.  It 
is  the  divine  ordinance  that  this  should  be  so,  and  we 
may  be  sure  that,  like  all  other  divine  appointments,  it 
is  founded  in  wisdom.  Only  let  it  be  observed  that, 
to  quote  from  an  able  writer,*  "What  is  necessary  for 
the  happiness  of  married  Ufe  is  a  submission  which  shall 
grow  out  of  principle,  not  out  of  fear.  Submission,  to 
be  valuable,  must  rest  upon  the  idea  of  duty,  and  that 
upon  the  divine  law.  Women  are  to  yield,  but  it  should 
be  to  the  divine  authority  delegated  to  the  husband." 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  see  what  is  demanded  of  the 
husband  by  the  apostle :  "  Husbands,  love  your  wives, 
even  as  Christ  also  loved  the  Church  and  gave  Himself 
for  it."  If  the  husband  is  by  the  divine  ordinance 
clothed  with  authority,  he  is  also  charged  to  render  in 
return  a  love  like  that  of  Christ  for  the  Church — pure, 
disinterested,  devoted,  self-sacrificing.  He  is  to  give 
himself  to  the  woman  whom  God  has  given  him  to  wife. 
He  is  to  give  his  energies,  his  affections,  yea,  himself 
for  her!  Yes,  if  obedience  is  her  obligation  to  him, 
self-surrender,  self-sacrifice  is  his  obhgation  to  her.  I 
think  you  will  agree  with  me  that  obedience  ought  to 
*  Hugh  Davey  Evans. 


The  Holy  Estate  of  Matrimony  89 

be  an  easy  tribute,  gladly  rendered,  in  return  for  a  love 
that  bears  any  resemblance  to  the  self-sacrificing  love 
of  Christ. 

5.  I  have  left  myself  but  a  moment  in  which  to  speak 
of  a  feature  in  the  divine  ideal  of  marriage  which  is  im- 
phed  by  necessary  implication  in  the  others  upon  which 
I  have  dwelt.  I  mean  its  indissolubleness.  It  is  part 
of  the  divine  plan  and  purpose  that  this  holy  estate 
should  be  entered  into  for  life.  The  vow  at  God's  al- 
tar is  "  Till  death  do  us  part,"  "  What  God  hath  joined 
together,  let  no  man  put  asunder."  The  union  wliich 
is  created  by  marriage  is  one  which  man  has  no  author- 
ity to  dissolve.  The  divine  wisdom  has  ordered  that 
when  two  persons  enter  into  this  holy  estate  it  shall  not 
be  for  months,  or  for  years,  but  for  life.  They  take 
each  other  for  better,  for  worse,  in  sickness  and  in  health, 
till  death  shall  part  them. 

The  same  divine  wisdom  has  ordained  that  there  is 
one  foul  act  of  sin — an  act  of  disloyalty  and  treason  to 
the  holiest  obligations  of  marriage — for  which  the  bond 
may  be  dissolved.  Of  this  I  need  not  speak,  save  only 
to  impress  upon  you  that  the  divine  Saviour  makes  this 
one  exception,  and  this  only,  to  the  absolute  indissolu- 
bihty  of  the  marriage  relation. 

And  now,  my  brethren,  in  conclusion,  I  ask  you  one 
and  all  to  reverence  as  it  ought  to  be  reverenced,  this 
beautiful  ideal  of  the  holy  estate  of  matrimony  which 
has  been  revealed  to  us  by  Christ  and  His  apostles.  Cor- 
rect, if  need  be,  your  notions  of  marriage  by  this  heaven- 
descended  portraiture.  Change,  if  necessary,  your  at- 
titude toward  this  holy  mystery.  "The  notions  about 
marriage  which  prevail  in  any  community  have  an 
important  bearing  upon  the  morals  of  the  people."   "  As 


9©  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

the  family  is  the  root  of  society,  and  marriage  is  the  root 
of  the  family;  so  the  root  of  the  morals  of  every  society 
is  to  be  found  in  the  morals  of  the  family,  and  those 
morals  grow  out  of  the  ideas  entertained  about  mar- 
riage.'! * 

Alas,  how  low  and  unworthy  are  the  ideas  too  com- 
monly entertained  of  this  divinely  appointed  relation! 
How  hghtly  and  thoughtlessly  is  it  often  entered  into ; 
as  if  the  very  most  tremendous  issues  of  heaven  and 
hell  were  not  involved  in  it;  as  if  it  were  a  mere  tem- 
porary partnership  which  could  easily  be  dissolved  if 
desired;  as  if  it  were  an  experiment  which  could  be 
abandoned  if  it  should  prove  unsatisfactory.  We  are 
confronted  by  a  most  serious  state  of  things.  Divorce 
has  become  so  common,  and  is  often  obtained  upon 
such  frivolous  pretexts,  that  the  stability  of  the  family 
and  of  society  is  threatened.  Statistics  show  that 
while  the  population  has  increased  sixty  per  cent., 
divorces  have  increased  one  hundred  and  fifty  per  cent. 

Ah,  brethren,  let  us  invoke  the  name  and  the  influ- 
ence of  the  best  Friend  of  man,  the  Friend  of  sinners, 
the  Saviour  of  the  world!  There  He  stands,  blessing 
the  marriage  feast  by  His  presence,  giving  His  benedic- 
tion to  the  happy  bride  and  bridegroom;  and  then  He 
opens  His  mouth  and  teaches  us  the  unity,  the  sanctity, 
the  indissolubleness  of  marriage.  As  we  hsten  to  Him 
we  reaUze  that  He  felt  the  bond  to  be  "  one  which  more 
than  any  other  binds  human  society  together,"  and 
with  His  divine  prescience  foresaw  the  countless  evils 
which  would  result  to  society  if  men  held  loosely  to  its 
sacred  obligations — the  poisoning  of  the  cup  of  domes- 
tic happiness,  the  wretchedness  of  children,  the  break- 
*  Hugh  Davey  Evans.| 


The  Holy  Estate  of  Matrimony  91 

ing  up  of  families,  the  degradation  of  woman  which 
would  follow  freedom  of  divorce,  the  lowering  of  man- 
hood which  would  come  if  men  yielded  to  the  temptation 
to  choose  a  wife  and  then  abandon  her  for  another  at 
his  whim  or  fancy. 

Oh,  by  the  love  of  the  Son  of  Man,  I  conjure  you, 
men  and  women,  abandon  every  unworthy  and  inade- 
quate conception  of  marriage!  By  those  solemn  warn- 
ings of  His,  spoken  in  infinite  love  and  in  infinite  wisdom, 
be  taught  that  the  loose  views  popularly  held  on  this 
subject,  of  which  we  have  every  day  conspicuous  illus- 
trations in  the  proceedings  of  the  divorce  courts,  are 
false  as  the  bottomless  pit,  and  are  pregnant  with  shame 
and  misery  to  the  family,  to  society,  and  to  the  state. 


DISASTROUS    EFFECTS    OF    THE    SELFISH 
PRINCIPLE   IN  SOCIETY 

FOR  THE   THIRD   SUNDAY   AFTER   EPIPHANY 

"And  as  the  shipmen  were  about  to  flee  out  of  the  ship,  when  they 
had  let  down  the  boat  into  the  sea,  under  color  as  though  they 
would  have  cast  anchors  out  of  the  foreship,  Paul  said  to  the 
centurion  and  to  the  soldiers,  Except  these  abide  in  the  ship, 
ye  cannot  be  saved.  Then  the  soldiers  cut  off  the  ropes  of  the 
boat,  and  let  her  fall  off." — Acts  xxvii.  30-32. 

The  ship  in  which  St.  Paul  was  journeying,  a  prisoner, 
to  Rome  had  been  overtaken  by  a  violent  storm  in  the 
Mediterranean  Sea  and  all  hope  of  escape,  after  many 
days  of  tempest,  was  abandoned,  when  he,  the  prisoner, 
stood  forth  in  the  midst  of  the  terror-stricken  passen- 
gers and  crew  and  bid  them  be  of  good  cheer,  "for," 
said  he,  "  there  shall  be  no  loss  of  any  man's  life  among 
you,  but  of  the  ship."  In  explanation  of  this  confident 
assurance  he  then  told  the  wondering  company — two 
hundred  and  seventy-six  souls  in  all — that  the  angel  of 
God  had  stood  by  him  in  the  night  and  said:  ''Fear 
not,  Paul;  thou  must  be  brought  before  Caesar;  and, 
lo,  God  hath  given  thee  all  them  that  sail  with  thee." 

Some  time — possibly  some  days — after  this,  about 
midnight,  the  soundings  showed  that  land  was  near, 
whereupon  they  cast  four  anchors  out  of  the  stern,  "  and 
wished  for  the  day."  It  was  then  that  the  sailors,  in 
obedience  to  that  selfish  instinct  which  is  so  often  con- 
_   .  .  92 


The  Selfish  Principle  in  Society  93 

spicuous  in  disasters  at  sea,  secretly  determined  to  leave 
the  rest  of  the  company  to  their  fate,  and  to  make  their 
escape  in  the  boat,  which  they  let  down  into  the  sea 
under  pretence  of  casting  anchors  out  of  the  foreship. 

But  Paul,  divining  their  purpose,  said  to  the  centu- 
rion and  to  the  soldiers,  "Except  these  abide  in  the 
ship,  ye  cannot  be  saved." 

Now  there  is  something  very  noteworthy  about  this 
declaration  of  the  apostle,  that  unless  these  men  de- 
sisted from  their  selfish  purpose  the  whole  ship's  com- 
pany must  perish. 

It  was  not  because  they  were  carrying  off  the  boat, 
which  might  prove  the  instrument  of  saving  the  tem- 
pest-tossed crew  and  passengers,  for  he  permitted  the 
soldiers  to  "  cut  off  the  ropes  of  the  boat  and  let  her  fall 
off"  into  the  sea  and  be  swept  away.  It  has  been  sug- 
gested that  it  was  because  the  skill  and  seamanship  of 
the  sailors  were  needed  to  handle  the  ship,  and  run  her 
ashore  upon  a  spot  from  which  it  would  be  possible  for 
the  passengers  and  crew  to  escape  safely  to  land.  In 
other  words  (according  to  this  view)  though  the  angel 
of  God  had  given  him  assurance  that  none  of  the  com- 
pany should  perish,  yet  he  felt  that  every  available 
human  instrumentahty  of  escape  was  to  be  made  use 
of,  and  his  judgment  told  him  the  soldiers  and  lands- 
men could  not  safely  beach  the  ship. 

This  last  explanation  is  doubtless  correct  as  far  as  it 
goes.  Trust  in  God  does  not  justify  carelessness  or 
apathy  or  supine  neglect  of  all  human  instrumentalities 
of  help. 

But  there  is,  I  am  persuaded,  a  deeper  meaning  in 
these  words  of  the  apostle.  They  were  meant  to  em- 
phasize the  disastrous  results  to  any  company,  to  any 


94  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

community,  to  the  family,  to  the  state,  to  the  Church 
of  the  adoption  of  a  selfish  policy  of  action  by  any  mem- 
ber, or  by  any  portion,  of  such  community. 

It  was  the  will  of  God  that  those  hundreds  of  souls 
should  escape  the  fury  of  the  sea,  but  only  upon  con- 
dition that  no  part  of  the  company  should  selfishly  seek 
their  own  salvation  in  disregard  of  the  safety  of  their 
comrades.  The  safety  of  each  was  the  interest  of  all. 
For  any  group  of  men  to  seek  to  cut  themselves  off  from 
the  rest  in  an  effort  to  escape  the  shipwreck,  leaving 
their  comrades  to  their  fate,  was  to  sin  against  their 
own  interests,  as  well  as  against  the  interests  of  all  the 
rest.  It  was  to  bring  destruction  upon  the  whole  com- 
pany by  their  selfish  effort  to  save  themselves. 

It  seems  to  me  this  scene,  interpreted  by  the  utterance 
of  St.  Paul  at  this  critical  juncture,  embodies  a  truth 
and  conveys  a  lesson  of  very  wide  application  in  the 
affairs  of  human  life.  Let  us  look  at  it  a  little  while 
this  morning. 

I  find  here  a  striking  illustration  of  the  solidarity  of 
the  community,  of  the  state,  yes,  of  the  race.  The  ship 
that  bore  St.  Paul  was  like  a  community  of  men  in  our 
modern  world  in  the  variety  of  the  elements  that  made 
up  the  ship's  company  and  in  the  unity  of  its  interests. 
There  were  soldiers  and  sailors,  prisoners  and  civilian 
passengers;  but  their  dangers  were  the  same,  and  their 
hope  was  one.  This  being  the  case,  it  was  the  ordi- 
nance of  God  that  selfish  regard  to  its  own  interests  by 
a  part  of  the  company  would  be  the  ruin  of  the  whole. 

A  modern  ocean  steamship  presents  an  even  more  im- 
pressive illustration  of  this  unity  and  community  of  in- 
terest in  human  society.  You  have,  perhaps,  fifteen 
hundred  souls  embarked  in  the  same  ship,  representing 


The  Selfish  Principle  in  Society  95 

almost  every  possible  class  and  phase  of  life — first- 
and  second-cabin  passengers,  steerage,  stewards,  sea- 
men, stokers — and  among  them  the  extremes  of  human 
conditions,  great  riches  and  great  poverty;  illustrious 
position  and  complete  obscurity;  milhonaires,  nobles, 
generals,  governors  of  provinces,  distinguished  diplo- 
mats, famous  inventors,  conspicuous  pohticians,  rail- 
road magnates,  directors  of  great  corporations;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  mechanics,  laboring  men,  servants,  and 
hundreds  of  poor  immigrants  coming  to  our  Western 
shores  to  make  a  home  for  themselves  and  their  fam- 
ihes.  But  all  are  saihng  in  the  same  ship,  bound  for  the 
same  port,  exposed  to  the  same  perils.  However 
widely  sundered  in  rank  and  condition  they  have  all 
one  interest  and  one  hope  in  the  voyage  upon  which 
they  are  embarked. 

What  an  epitome  is  tliis  of  human  life  and  of  human 
society!  With  all  the  variety  of  conditions  among  men 
in  the  social  scale,  with  all  the  extremes  of  rank  and 
riches  and  poverty,  there  is,  after  all,  a  soUdarity  of  in- 
terest if  we  only  had  discernment  to  see  it.  Your  mil- 
lionaire and  your  day  laborer  are  in  the  same  boat — 
paradoxical  as  it  may  seem  to  say  so.  The  first-cabin 
passengers,  perhaps,  seldom  give  a  thought  to  the  poor 
fellows  down  in  the  bowels  of  the  ship  who  are  toiling 
in  intolerable  heat — at  a  temperature  sometimes  up 
to  130  degrees — to  feed  the  fires;  but  it  is  true,  never- 
theless, that  but  for  those  grimy  stokers  down  there 
the  great  ship  would  soon  come  to  a  standstill  upon  the 
sea.  Without  their  muscular  arms  the  best  seaman- 
ship of  captain  and  officers  would  be  unable  to  bring 
her  into  port. 

Even  so,  in  human  society,  we  are  dependent  upon 


96  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Yeai 

one  another  to  a  degree  we  seldom  fully  realize.  The 
rich  and  the  poor  are  necessary  to  each  other.  The 
brain-worker  and  the  man  who  works  with  his  hands 
supplement  each  other  in  the  complicated  mechanism  of 
the  social  fabric.  The  various  professions,  the  different 
trades  and  occupations,  are  mutually  dependent,  mutually 
helpful,  bound  together  in  a  community  of  interest. 

Society  is  a  ship  in  which  we  are  all  passengers,  and 
it  is  only  blindness  and  stupidity  not  to  see  that  a  leak 
in  the  steerage,  or  down  in  the  hold  among  the  stokers, 
will  be  full  of  peril  to  the  whole  ship's  company.  If  an 
epidemic  of  typhus  or  of  diphtheria  or  of  smaUpox  ap- 
pears in  the  slums,  people  do  not  need  to  be  told  that 
there  is  danger  of  its  infecting  the  whole  city.  But  it 
is  equally,  though  not  so  obviously,  true  that  bad  phys- 
ical or  moral  conditions  among  the  poor,  overcrowd- 
ing, ill-paid  labor,  the  detestable  sweating  system,  un- 
sanitary tenements,  overwork,  child  labor — in  short,  the 
manifold  forms  of  social  injustice — all  these  things  are 
also  fuU  of  peril  to  the  community  as  a  whole. 

Now  the  words  of  St.  Paul  to  the  centurion  in  our 
text  are  in  reality  an  assertion  of  the  ruinous  and  de- 
structive consequences  that  are  attached  by  the  will  of 
God  to  the  selfish  principle  of  life  and  action.  "Ex- 
cept these  sailors  abide  in  the  ship,  ye  cannot  be  saved." 
If  they  prosecute  their  selfish  plan  to  desert  the  ship 
and  save  themselves,  the  whole  company,  themselves 
included,  must  perish.  Their  intended  action  was  a 
breach  of  the  law  of  brotherhood.  It  was  conceived 
in  utter  disregard  of  the  interests  of  those  who  were  as- 
sociated with  them  by  a  common  interest  and  a  com- 
mon peril.  And  it  would  be  fraught  with  ruin  to  all 
on  board  if  it  was  not  frustrated. 


The  Selfish  Principle  in  Society  97 

The  point  to  be  emphasized  and  pondered  here  is  that 
a  selfish  principle  of  action  has  evil  consequences  of  un- 
suspected extent.  It  seems  so  natural  to  be  governed 
by  our  own  interests — in  emergencies  to  seek  our  own 
safety — that  we  are  not  prepared  for  the  discovery  that 
we  are  thereby  doing  a  great  wrong  to  others.  Those 
sailors  possibly  did  not  suppose  that  in  seeking  their 
own  safety  they  were  insuring  the  destruction  of  all  the 
rest  on  board. 

And  so  in  our  daily  Hves,  in  our  homes,  in  our  fam- 
ilies, in  society,  in  business,  in  pubhc  life,  we  do  not, 
perhaps,  at  aU  appreciate  that  our  conduct,  our  every 
action,  has  a  wide  circle  of  influence  upon  our  fellow 
men;  that,  in  fact,  we  cannot  isolate  ourselves  from  the 
community;  that  every  deed,  every  decision,  every  plan 
of  ours,  affects  the  interest  and  the  well-being  of  others. 
"No  man  hveth  to  himself."  No  man  can  righteously 
disregard  his  fellows  in  determining  his  course  of  action. 
No,  for  he  stands  in  indissoluble  relation  to  them.  He 
cannot  break  the  bond  that  unites  him  to  his  brother 
men.  What  he  is,  what  he  does,  must  affect  their  in- 
terests. 

A  man  cannot  be  wicked  but  his  wickedness  becomes 
an  infection.  A  man  cannot  be  impure  but  his  im- 
purity somehow  pollutes  society.  A  man  cannot  be 
dishonest  or  unjust  or  profane  "  to  himself  "  but  his 
vice,  whatever  it  is,  will  spread  like  a  miasma  around 
him.  And  a  man  cannot  decide  upon  a  course  of  action 
upon  a  purely  selfish  principle,  for  his  own  interest  or 
advantage  or  safety — just  eliminating  the  interests  of 
others  from  the  problem — without  doing  a  distinct  and 
definite  injury  to  his  fellow  men. 

There  are  ten  thousand  occasions  in  life  when  men 


qS  The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

act  as  these  sailors  did  in  the  shipwreck — ^just  lay  their 
plans  for  their  own  safety,  or  for  their  own  advantage, 
without  taking  account  of  others,  perhaps  without  any 
intention  of  injuring  them,  but  just  ignoring  them, 
and  keeping  their  eyes  fixed  on  their  own  interests,  all 
the  while  not  in  the  least  realizing  that  this  selfishness 
of  theirs  is  inflicting  upon  the  community  a  positive  and 
far-reaching  injury. 

Now  it  is  the  office  of  our  holy  religion  to  unmask  the 
hideous  nature  of  selfishness,  and  to  reveal  the  beauty 
of  the  opposite  principle  of  altruism. 

In  the  school  of  Christ  we  learn  that  all  men  are  our 
brothers,  and  that  we  are  indeed  our  brothers'  keepers. 
We  see  in  His  pure  and  spotless  life  not  only  the  perfect 
model  of  purity,  but  the  incentive  and  inspiration  to  a 
course  of  conduct  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  unselfish 
love.  We  learn  from  His  hps  that  "he  that  loveth  his 
life  shall  lose  it,"  and  he  that  loseth  his  life  for  the  Mas- 
ter's sake  shall  find  it  unto  life  eternal.  And  so  we  come 
to  understand  the  beauty  and  the  blessedness  of  the 
principle  of  self-sacrifice,  so  resplendent  in  the  life  and 
death  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Let  us,  then,  as  disciples  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth, 
realize  the  central  principle  that  lies  at  the  heart  of  the 
religion  which  He  has  taught  us.  It  is  not  righteous- 
ness merely,  or  justice  or  integrity,  or  even  purity,  but 
something  more.  As  on  one  side  Christianity  means 
the  self-sacrifice  of  Christ  for  us,  whereby  alone  we  ob- 
tain the  remission  of  our  sins,  so  on  the  other  side  it 
means  that  those  who  bear  the  holy  name  of  Christians 
shall  be  baptized  into  that  same  spirit  of  self-sacrificing 
love,  which  alone  is  the  mark  and  stamp  and  seal  of  His 
discipleship. 


The  Selfish  Principle  in  Society  99 

That  sublime  sentiment  of  the  Roman  poet, 
"Homo  sum;  atque  nihil  humani  a  me  alienum  puto," 
is  taken  up  and  transfigured  by  the  rehgion  of  Christ. 
In  the  light  of  the  Cross  it  reads,  "I  am  a  Christian; 
and  no  human  being  is  a  stranger  to  me — nay,  every 
child  of  man  is  related  to  me  in  the  brotherhood  of 
Christ." 

My  brethren,  let  us  see  to  it  that  this  brotherhood  is 
a  reality  to  us  and  not  a  mere  sentiment.  Let  us  make 
it  practical  in  aU  the  relations  in  which  we  stand  in  hfe 
— to  our  domestics,  to  our  servants,  to  our  employees, 
to  aU  with  whom  we  are  brought  in  contact. 

The  spirit  of  individualism,  which  is  so  strong  in  our 
day,  is  crying  aloud  in  the  streets  and  the  marts  of 
traffic,  ''Every  man  for  himself!"  The  spirit  of  Christ 
rephes  in  the  words  of  the  great  apostle,  "Nay,  let 
no  man  seek  liis  o^m,  but  every  man  another's  well- 
being." 

Men  may  sneer  at  this  principle  of  conduct  as  quix- 
otic. They  may  tell  us  that  it  wiU  never  work  in  the 
rough  and  tumble  of  every-day  life.  But,  thank  God, 
there  are  some  great  souls  among  the  leaders  and  work- 
ers of  the  world  who  are  of  a  different  mind  and  who 
have  themselves  proved  it  practical.  These  men  see 
that  a  cold  and  calculating  competition,  which  in  the 
last  analysis  is  the  embodiment  of  the  spirit  of  the  tiger, 
can  never  furnish  the  basis  of  a  stable  order  in  society. 
They  recognize  that  the  sociahsm  of  the  gospel,  which 
is  the  gradual  leavening  of  society  with  the  spirit  of  a 
genuine  brotherhood,  is  the  only  solvent  of  the  prob- 
lems which  confront  society  to-day,  and  which  the  vari- 
ous theories  of  economic  sociaUsm  are  vainly  seeking  to 
jolve. 


loo        The  Gk)spel  in  the  Christian  Year 

These  are  the  men 

"  Who  carry  music  in  their  heart, 
'Mid  dusty  lane  and  wrangling  mart," 

and  whose  unselfish  lives  in  the  midst  of  a  self-seeking 
world  shine  as  beacons  of  hope  for  the  future. 

Citizens  like  these  are  the  need  of  the  ship  of  state  to- 
day and  for  the  time  to  come — men  who  give  earnest 
thought  to  the  stokers  who,  in  heat  and  grime  and  toil, 
are  feeding  the  fires  that  generate  the  motive  power  of 
the  ship ;  who  are  concerned  to  know  how  the  other  half 
lives,  and  how  their  condition  can  be  ameliorated;  who 
remember  that  all  life  and  all  conduct  has  a  social  as- 
pect; who  reahze  that  they  are  members  of  a  great  or- 
ganism, and  that  as  such  they  have  a  real  responsibility, 
even  in  private  fife,  for  the  well-being  of  society. 

Such  men,  I  repeat,  are  the  bulwarks  of  the  state, 
and  in  times  of  national  peril  they  will  not  be  found 
among  those  who  seize  the  boats  and  think  only  of  sav- 
ing themselves  and  their  possessions,  but  will  stand  by 
the  ship  and  consecrate  their  property  and  their  lives, 
if  need  be,  for  the  conmionweal. 

Thank  God  for  the  confidence  that  this  spirit  of  Ghrist- 
like  unselfishness  and  brotherly  love  will  ultimately  pre- 
vail over  the  manifold  forms  of  self-seeking  which  now 
wield  so  mafign  a  power  in  the  affairs  of  men!  i 


I  close  with  a  few  fines  from  a  book  which  hasi 
deeply  stirred  the  mind  and  heart  of  thoughtful  mei; 
in  England  and  the  United  States: 

"  Democracy  must  get  rid  of  the  natural  man  of  eacl 
for  himself,  and  have  a  new  birth  into  the  spiritual  man 
the  ideal  self  of  each  for  all.  This  is  its  great  lesson 
The  monstrous  heresy  of  self-worship,  self-absorptioD 


II 


The  Selfish  Principle  in  Society  loi 

whether  as  a  capitalist,  artist,  bonze,  or  mere  greedy 
fellow,  ...  is  the  essentially  irreligious  idea.  .  .  . 
Nothing  but  a  Church  wall  do.  All  the  other  schemes 
of  democracy  have  come  to  naught  for  want  of  that. 
The  lecture-platform  is  no  substitute  for  Sinai.  De- 
mocracy is  a  religion  or  nothing,  with  its  doctrine,  its 
form,  its  ritual,  .  .  .  above  aU,  its  organized  sacrifice 
of  the  altar,  the  sacrifice  of  self.  Tliis  is  the  deepest 
craving  of  human  nature.  All  attempts  to  reconcile 
man's  heroism  to  his  interests  have  ever  failed,  .  .  . 
There  is  no  escape  from  the  law  of  brotherhood.  All 
solutions  but  this  have  had  their  trial,  and  all  have 
failed.  .  .  .  Ring  out  the  old,  ring  in  the  new,  the 
great  moral  Renaissance."  * 

*  "  No.  5  John  Street,"  by  R.  Whiteing. 


THE  GADARENE  CHOICE— CHRIST,   OR  THE 
SWINE? 

FOR   THE    FOURTH   SUNDAY    AFTER   EPIPHANY 

"  And,  behold,  the  whole  city  came  out  to  meet  Jesus;  and  when  they 
saw  Him,  they  besought  Him  that  he  would  depart  out  of  their 
coasts."— Qt.  Matt.  viii.  34. 

We  have  here  a  strange  spectacle  indeed.  An  entire 
community  swarming  forth  out  of  its  gates  to  meet 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  not  to  welcome  Him,  not  to  hail  His 
coming  as  a  joyful  event  for  them  and  their  city,  but  to 
petition  Him,  yea,  to  beseech  Him  most  fervently,  not 
to  enter  within  their  waUs,  but  to  depart  out  of  their 

He  had  just  done  two  mighty  acts,  which  manifested 
His  power  and  His  glory,  and  ought  surely  to  have  called 
forth  not  only  their  wonder  but  their  adoration  and 
praise.  He  had  stiUed  the  tempest  on  the  Lake  of 
Genneseret.  when  the  Uttle  ship  that  carried  Him  and 
His  disciples  was  on  the  verge  of  destruction.  Yes,  the 
fierce  winds  and  waves  obeyed  His  word  of  command, 
"Peace,  be  still,",  and  there  was  a  great  cahn.  And 
then  he'had  healed  the  two  demoniacs,  who  were  a  terror 
to  aU  passers-by,  so  exceeding  fierce  and  so  powerful 
were  they.  These  men.  who  had  sold  themselves  to 
evil  spirits,  and  whose  souls  were  swept  by  storms  more 
violent  and  more  terrific  than  any  wliich  broke  over  the 
sea  of  Genneseret,  Jesus  had  defivered  from  then:  awful 

I02 


The  Gadarene  Choice — Christ,  or  the  Swine?  103 

thraldom.  At  His  word  of  command  those  demons  of 
darkness  had  relinquished  their  prey,  and  the  tempest- 
tossed  souls  of  the  unfortunate  men  were  at  peace. 
Reason  and  conscience  had  resumed  their  sway  over 
them,  and  the  demoniacs  were  restored  to  the  fellowship 
of  men. 

Surely  two  marvellous  manifestations,  these,  of  the 
glory  of  Jesus;  and  more,  of  His  beneficence  and  com- 
passion for  men  in  their  sore  need.  The  spectacle  of 
them,  one  would  say,  would  naturally  excite  the  adora- 
tion of  men — would  attract  them,  would  lead  them  to 
make  supplication  to  Him  not  to  depart  from  them,  but 
to  abide  with  them. 

Whence,  then,  this  opposite  result?  Why  was  it  that 
the  whole  city  of  the  Gadarenes  deprecated  the  coming 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  into  their  midst,  actually  made 
supplication  to  Him  to  depart  out  of  their  coasts? 

The  narrative  leaves  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  answer. 
The  healing  of  the  poor  demoniacs  was  immediately 
followed  by  the  destruction  of  a  great  herd  of  swine 
feeding  in  the  vicinity.  These  rushed  violently  down 
a  steep  place  into  the  sea  and  perished  in  the  waters. 

It  was  this  destruction  of  their  swine  that  alarmed 
the  Gadarenes.  It  might  be  a  wonderful  thing — yes, 
something  to  excite  adoration  of  Him  who  wrought  the 
deed — to  cast  out  the  evil  spirits  from  the  demoniacs, 
to  still  the  discord  and  the  storm  in  their  souls,  and  to 
restore  them  to  peace  and  to  reason;  but  if  this  great 
miracle  of  healing  and  deliverance  involved  the  loss  of  a 
herd  of  two  thousand  swine,  they  were  not  prepared  to 
invite  a  repetition  of  it.  Nay,  they  regarded  it  as  a 
calamity,  not  as  a  blessing.  The  rescue  of  a  human 
soul  from  the  foul  thraldom  of  demoniacal  possession 


104        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year  ..• 

was  too  dearly  purchased  for  them  by  the  loss  of  a  herd 
of  swine.  If  the  presence  of  Jesus  in  their  city  meant 
the  loss  of  their  property  in  such  wholesale  fashion,  they 
would  none  of  it.  Let  Him  go  elsewhere  with  His  mira- 
cles. To  have  the  gains  of  their  swine-herding  cut  'off 
merely  to  rescue  human  souls  from  the  tyranny  of  the 
devil  was  not  to  be  thought  of.  And  so  the  whole  mul- 
titude of  the  country  of  the  Gadarenes  round  about 
besought  Him  to  depart  out  of  their  coasts. 

Yes,  though  there  before  their  eyes  were  the  former 
demoniacs,  healed,  disenthralled,  clothed,  and  in  their, 
right  mind — they  who  had  had  their  dwellings  among 
the  tombs;  whose  fearful  cries  had  resounded  through 
the  mountains  night  and  day;  who  had  been-  wont  to 
cut  and  gash  themselves  with  stones  till  their  blood 
flowed  like  water ;  whom  none  could  tarfle  or  subdue,  no, 
not  with  chains  and  fetters ;  who  were  so  exceeding  fierce 
that  no  man  might  pass  that  way — these  pitiable  pris- 
oners of  the  evil  one  had  been  liberated,  the  fetters 
which  bound  their  spirits  broken,  their  reason  restored: 
there  they  were,  once  more  men,  fit  to  take  their  place 
among  their  fellows!  What  a  glorious  deliverance — 
and  Jesus  of  Nazareth  had  effected  it! 

Hail  Him,  then,  as  deliverer!  Welcome  Him!  Throw 
wide  the  gates  of  Gadara!  Present  Him  with  the  free- 
dom of  the  city !  Implore  Him  to  abide  there  and  con- 
tinue His  mighty  works  of  healing  for  diseased  and  de- 
moniac men! 

Nay,  not  so.  This  miracle  of  healing  involved  the 
loss  of  our  swine;  the  whole  herd  has  perished.  Let 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  depart  from  our  coasts.  We  will  not 
have  Him  in  our  midst  at  such  a  cost.     Who  can  tell 

hat  losses  His  next  miracle  will  entail? 


The  Gadarene  Choice — Christ,  or  the  Swine?  105 

What  a  shame!  we  all  cry.  These  Gadarenes  are  a 
disgrace  to  the  human  race.  To  close  their  gates 
against  Jesus  Christ!  To  have  the  opportunity  of  His 
being  their  guest,  and  to  reject  it!  Actually  to  be- 
seech Him  to  go  away !  Such  an  one  as  He :  the  holiest 
and  the  greatest,  the  humblest  and  the  most  heroic, 
the  wisest  and  the  most  beneficent  of  men — nay,  the 
Son  of  God,  the  Saviour — to  spurn  Him  as  if  He  had 
been  an  outcast  or  an  enemy !  Ah !  what  deep  degrada- 
tion was  this !  "What  an  act  of  shame !  These  Gadarenes 
have  forever  stigmatized  themselves  by  this  conduct. 
Their  name  will  be  synonymous  with  shame  for  all  time. 

This,  I  suppose,  would  be  our  unanimous  verdict. 
But  are  we  quite  sure  that  the  men  of  Gadara  stand  alone 
in  what  they  did  that  day?  Are  there  no  other  cities 
whose  gates  would  have  been  closed  against  Him  under 
similar  circumstances?  Are  there  no  communities  to- 
day who  would  be  sorry  to  have  Jesus  Christ  come  and 
take  up  His  residence  in  their  midst?  Indeed.  I  am 
very  much  afraid  we  would  not  have  to  go  very  far  to 
find  one. 

For  consider  what  the  coming  of  Christ  with  His  heal- 
ing, saving  power  would  mean  in  any  community.  For 
example :  Suppose  the  Saviour  of  the  world  should  cast 
out  the  evil  spirit  of  drink  from  all  who  are  now  under 
its  sway.  What  a  shrinkage  there  would  be  in  the  pres- 
ent enormous  consumption  of  intoxicating  drink!  And 
what  would  become  of  the  liquor  trade  then?  How  the 
fat  dividends  of  the  stock  would  shrivel  till  Pharaoh's 
lean  kine  would  be  fat  in  comparison!  No  more  great 
fortunes  built  on  the  degradation  and  debasement  of 
human  souls!  No  more  millions  coined  out  of  the  tears 
and  sorrow  and  shame  of  the  wives  and  children  of  the 


io6         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

victims  of  strong  drink!  And  what  think  you?  Would 
the  liquor-sellers  and  the  owners  of  stock  in  the  liquor 
traffic  welcome  a  Christ  whose  heahng,  saving  power 
would  result  in  such  financial  losses?  Or  would  they 
rather  range  themselves  with  the  men  of  Gadara,  who 
set  the  value  of  a  herd  of  swine  far  above  that  of  a  re- 
deemed human  soul? 

Or  suppose  Jesus  Christ  should  come  into  any  Ameri- 
can city  and  begin  to  cast  out  that  demon  that  possesses 
an  increasing  number  of  men  and  women,  I  mean  the 
demon  of  gambling  in  its  many  forms,  more  or  less  re- 
spectable— the  gilt-edged  and  refined  methods  that  are 
to  be  found  here  and  there  in  the  Stock  Exchanges,  the 
more  open  methods  of  the  race-course,  the  gaming-tables 
in  clubs  and  private  houses,  the  pool-selling,  the  policy- 
shops,  and  the  low  gambling  dens — suppose,  I  say,  this 
evil  spirit  were  exorcised  from  our  modern  society  (as 
would  God  it  might  be!),  would  there  be  no  Gadarenes 
who  would  cry  out  against  a  Christ  who  should  cut  off 
thus  the  hope  of  their  gains  by  this  degrading  passion 
for  play? 

Or  suppose  the  Man  of  Nazareth,  who  first  taught 
"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,"  should  exorcise  the 
spirit  of  immodesty  and  impurity  that  informs  and  in- 
spires so  large  a  proportion  of  the  amusements  that  the 
people  feed  upon,  purging  the  drama  of  the  immoral 
tone  that  too  commonly  characterizes  it  now,  and  mak- 
ing it  indeed  a  school  of  virtue,  which  at  present  it  too 
seldom  is;  dissociating  the  noble  music  of  the  opera 
from  the  immodest  ballet;  shutting  up  the  low  dance- 
houses  and  so-called  variety  shows  (hotbeds  of  vice,  as 
they  are),  just  because  the  taste  and  morals  of  the  people 
would  no  longer  patronize  them.     Suppose  these  re- 


The  Gadarene  Choice — Christ,  or  the  Swine?  107 

forms  were  brought  about  by  the  presence  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  our  midst — not  to  speak  of  the  abolition  of 
the  unspeakable  horrors  of  the  social  evil — think  you 
there  would  not  rise  up  a  host  of  Gadarenes  to  beseech 
Him  to  depart  out  of  their  coasts,  and  for  the  same  reason 
— because  their  swinish  trade  was  suffering  so  severely 
at  His  hands? 

Or  suppose  the  same  divine  influence  were  put  forth 
to  cast  out  the  evil  spirits  that  possess  so  much  of  the 
literature  that  the  people  feed  upon;  the  fashionable 
novel,  whose  hero  or  heroine  sets  at  defiance  the  laws  of 
morality,  and  whose  baleful  influence  spreads  hke  a  lep- 
rosy, especiaUy  among  the  young,  palliating  vice  and 
sneering  at  the  lofty  ideals  of  the  Christian  religion;  or 
the  low  romance  of  the  disciples  of  "reahsm,"  so  called, 
which  paints  sin  and  shame  in  all  its  forms  and  in  every 
detail;  or  the  sensational  newspaper,  which  drags  the 
gutters  day  by  day  for  a  fresh  assortment  of  scandals 
and  crimes  to  serve  up  to  its  readers;  or  the  popular 
lecture  of  some  blatant  infidel  whose  ignorance  of  the 
reUgion  he  caricatures  is  only  equaUed  by  the  coarse 
ribaldry  of  his  language.  Suppose,  I  say,  Jesus  Christ 
should  come  among  us  casting  out  of  our  literature 
the  evil  spirits  of  uncleanness,  of  venality,  of  falsehood, 
of  scandal-mongering,  who  does  not  know  that  the  pub- 
lishers and  their  stockholders  would  cry  out  against  Him 
because  He  was  diminishing  the  hope  of  their  gains? 

Or  yet  again,  let  us  suppose  that  Jesus  Christ  should 
come  into  the  legislative  haUs  of  the  several  States  and 
of  the  United  States,  and  insist  upon  upUfting  and  puri- 
fying the  spirit  of  our  legislation,  so  that  it  should  be 
wholly  and  solely  for  the  benefit  of  the  public,  and  never 
dictated  or  directed  by  corporations  or  by  combinations 


io8        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

of  men  for  private  interest  or  gain,  so  that  "  jobs  "  should 
be  heard  of  no  more,  and  the  lobbyist  should  have  no 
further  occupation. 

Would  a  Christ  whose  influence  should  tend  to  such  a 
result  be  hailed  with  delight  by  all  our  people?  Would 
there  not  rise  up  many  Gadarenes  to  bid  Him  depart 
out  of  our  coasts? 

These  are  only  illustrations  of  the  nature  of  the  work 
that  Jesus  Christ  would  do  in  all  our  communities.  He 
would  come  to  purify  aU  the  springs  of  life — social,  com- 
mercial, pohtical,  rehgious.  He  would  rebuke  the  dis- 
honest tricks  of  trade  in  employer  and  in  employee.  He 
would  frown  upon  all  forms  of  misrepresentation  of  the 
quality  or  texture  of  goods.  He  would  scourge  out  of 
our  courts  of  justice  those  who  use  the  forms  of  law  to 
defraud  or  to  oppress.  In  ten  thousand  ways  He  would 
cut  off  the  unrighteous  gains  or  the  unholy  traffic  of 
men,  and  for  this  reason  He  would  not  be  welcome  to 
many.  In  all  classes  a  great  company  of  Gadarenes 
would  rise  up  and  beg  Him  to  depart. 

Nor  would  the  very  sanctuary  of  God  be  exempt  from 
His  rebuke.  He  would  find  much  that  needed  cleansing 
in  the  precincts  of  the  altar.  The  whip  of  small  cords, 
wherewith  He  drove  out  of  the  temple  them  that  sold 
and  bought  in  its  courts  would  again  be  in  requisition. 
And  there  would  not  be  wanting  high-priests,  and  priests 
and  Levites,  to  take  their  place  with  the  men  of  Gadara, 
who  besought  Him  to  depart  out  of  their  coasts. 

But  let  us  turn  from  the  attitude  of  the  community 
to  that  of  the  individual  toward  Jesus  Christ.  Would 
He  be  welcome  in  our  hearts  and  homes  if  He  came  to 
us  as  He  did  to  the  people  of  Gadara?  It  is  a  distressing 
and  humiliating  thought  that  so  many  of  our  communi- 


The  Gadarene  Choice — Christ,  or  the  Swine?  109 

ties  would  not  want  Him,  would  even  beg  Him  to  de- 
part. But  how  is  it  with  us?  Would  we  who  profess 
to  be  His  disciples  give  Him  indeed  a  hearty  welcome? 
Let  us  remember  that  when  He  enters  our  doors  He  will 
come  as  the  Refiner  and  Purifier.  He  will  reprove  our 
sins.  He  will  not  spare  any  unholiness  or  impurity.  If 
we  are  engaged  in  any  low,  degrading  occupation  He 
will  chide  us  and  bid  us  abandon  it,  and  choose  another 
worthy  of  our  dignity  as  men,  of  our  calling  as  Christians. 
If  we  are  cherishing  in  our  hearts  any  sensual,  swinish 
lust  He  will  bid  us  drive  it,  like  the  swine,  into  the  sea 
that  it  may  perish  forever. 

Yes,  for  Christ  comes  into  the  heart  to  save  it — first  and 
chiefly  from  the  thraldom  of  sin.  Sin  He  will  not 
spare,  for  His  love  for  the  sinner  is  too  deep  and  true  to 
leave  him  under  its  swa^^  As  when  He  trod  the  earth 
in  human  guise,  so  now  and  still  His  mission  is  to  cast 
out  devils — to  deliver  men  from  the  dominion  of  these 
evil  demons  that  hold  so  many  in  a  bitter  thraldom — 
the  demon  of  drink,  the  demon  of  covetousness,  the  de- 
mon of  lust,  the  demon  of  selfishness,  the  demon  of  mal- 
ice, the  demon  of  envy,  the  demon  of  pride — in  short, 
from  all  the  sinful  lusts  of  the  flesh. 

Now,  it  is  one  thing  to  admire  Christ,  to  extol  the 
beauty  and  glor}--  of  His  manhood,  to  perceive  the  match- 
less perfection  of  His  character,  to  bow  before  the  super- 
human majesty  that  clothes  His  brow,  to  wonder  at  the 
work  He  has  done  among  men,  His  miracles  of  grace 
and  power,  even  to  adore  Him  as  the  Redeemer  and 
Lord ;  but  it  is  another  thing,  and  a  far  more  difficult,  to 
welcome  Him  into  our  homes  and  our  hearts,  and  let  Him 
work  His  holy  will  upon  us  and  in  us — His  work  of  cleans- 
ng  and  purifying  in  all  the  chambers  of  our  life,  in  aU  the 


no         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

channels  of  our  thoughts  and  affections.  The  sin  and 
the  folly  of  the  Gadarenes  was  that  when  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth came  to  their  city,  bringing  a  great  spiritual  gift  in 
the  healing  of  the  demoniacs  and  their  restoration  to 
reason  and  to  life  and  to  the  society  of  their  fellow  men, 
they  shut  their  gates  against  Him  because  of  the  pecu- 
niary loss  that  accompanied  the  miracle  and  their  fear 
lest  His  presence  among  them  might  involve  still  further 
loss.  Now,  it  often  happens  to-day  that  the  coming  of 
Christ  into  a  man's  heart  and  home  involves  a  like  con- 
dition— the  spiritual  blessing  which  He  offers  cannot  be 
accepted  without  pecuniary  loss.  If  the  man  open  his 
door  to  Christ,  he  must  in  so  doing  accept  some  worldly 
loss  or  disadvantage  or  humiliation.  And  then  come 
the  trial  and  the  temptation  to  which  the  Gadarenes 
succumbed:  he  must  choose  between  the  temporal  and 
the  spiritual.  One  or  other  must  be  renounced.  It  is 
God  or  mammon ;  Christ  or  the  swine ! 

Let  me  illustrate  my  meaning.  More  than  twenty 
years  ago,  when  I  was  the  young  rector  of  a  venerable 
parish  in  Alexandria,  a  man  came  to  me  whose  heart  the 
Spirit  of  God  had  touched,  desiring  to  be  enrolled  as  a 
disciple  of  Christ.  But  there  was  a  difficulty  in  the  way : 
he  was  a  barkeeper  in  one  of  those  dens  called  saloons, 
where  men  were  nightly  debauched  and  degraded  by 
strong  drink.  Could  he  hold  his  place  there  and  at  the 
same  time  be  a  follower  of  Christ?  Surely  the  two  things 
were  incongruous.  But  it  was  his  only  support  and  he 
had  a  wife  and  five  cliildren  dependent  on  him.  I  left  it 
with  him  to  decide  the  question.  After  a  time  he  came 
back  to  say  he  had  decided  he  could  not  stand  behind 
that  bar  and  deal  out  strong  drink  to  men  to  their  ruin 
every  night,  and  at  the  same  time  wear  the  uniform  of 


The  Gadarene  Choice — Christ,  or  the  Swine?  iii 

Christ.  He  felt  he  must  choose  between  the  two  mas- 
ters, Clirist  and  Satan.  And  he  chose  Christ,  though 
it  meant  the  loss  of  his  only  means  of  support  for  himself 
and  his  family.  He  accepted  the  presence  of  Christ  and 
the  blessing  of  His  saving  power,  though  it  was  indis- 
solubly  bound  up  with  very  serious  woridly  loss. 

As  to  the  result  of  that  choice  I  can  testify  that  though 
he  was  long  without  employment,  and  never  got  work 
that  paid  nearly  so  well,  yet  he  never  regretted  it,  and 
from  the  day  he  made  the  decision  salvation  came  to  his 
house.  There  were  few  famihes  in  the  parish  more  man- 
ifestly stamped  with  the  Christian  spirit  than  his.  He 
preferred  the  spiritual  to  the  temporal,  and  the  Master 
richly  rewarded  liim. 

Another  example:  During  the  Rev.  Canon  Aitken's 
first  visit  to  this  country,  he  conducted  a  mission  in 
Trinity  Church,  New  Orleans,  and  one  of  the  converts 
was  a  gentleman  who  had  a  responsible  and  lucrative 
position  in  the  Louisiana  lottery.  The  same  question 
came  up  for  liim.  Could  he  be  a  Cliristian  and  continue 
to  be  an  employe  and  a  beneficiary  of  that  gigantic 
instrument  of  corruption,  which  had  grown  rich  and 
powerful  and  insolent  in  its  power,  upon  the  daily 
robbery  of  the  poor,  and  upon  the  ruin  of  many  a  life 
and  many  a  home?  He  decided  to  throw  up  his  position 
and  follow  Christ.  In  vain  his  employers  expostulated 
with  him  on  the  folly  of  such  a  course.  In  vain  it  was 
speciously  urged  upon  him  that  he  was  not  responsible, 
being  only  an  employee  and  not  a  stockholder.  He 
remained  resolute.  His  enlightened  conscience  saw 
through  the  sophistry  of  such  arguments.  The  issue 
was  clear:  God  or  mammon;  Christ  or  the  swine!  In 
his  case,  too,  I  can  bear  my  testimony  that  the  choice 


112        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

was  never  regretted,  though  it  reduced  him  for  years 
from  affluence  to  poverty.  The  pecuniary  sacrifice  was 
cheerfully  accepted  for  the  joy  and  the  blessing  of  the 
presence  of  Christ  in  his  heart  and  his  home. 

This  alternative  between  temporal  advantage  and 
spiritual  blessing,  which  presented  itself  to  these  men, 
so  sharply  at  the  outset  of  their  Christian  life,  is  one 
which  is  continually  arising  through  life  in  great  things 
or  in  small.  The  Christian  finds  himself  over  and  over 
again  confronted  by  the  necessity  of  making  his  choice 
between  apparent  worldly  advantage,  or  pleasure,  or 
distinction,  or  success,  or  gain,  or  popularity,  and  spirit- 
ual good.  Hardly  a  day  passes  without  his  being  called 
upon  to  make  some  renunciation  of  what  would  be  agree- 
able or  profitable  or  pleasant,  if  he  would  retain  the 
purity  of  his  conscience,  or  the  sense  of  fidelity  to  duty. 
Again  and  again  it  is  God  or  self,  Christ  or  the  swine! 

And  often,  it  is  to  be  feared,  the  Christian,  scarce  real- 
izing what  he  is  doing,  makes  the  choice  of  the  Gada- 
renes.  Christ  comes  to  him  with  His  high  ideal  of  per- 
fect integrity  in  business,  and  the  man  looks  up  restless 
and  uncomfortable  at  having  it  thrust  upon  him  in  his 
office  or  his  counting-room,  and  the  wish  is  born  in  his 
heart,  though  the  word  may  not  rise  to  his  hps,  that 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  would  depart  and  let  him  alone !  Or 
again,  Christ  comes  with  His  ideal  of  purity  of  heart  and 
thought,  and  the  man  who  has  promised  to  be  His  disci- 
ple suddenly  finds  those  holy  eyes  fixed  upon  him  in  sad- 
ness, rebuking  his  desires,  or  his  imaginations,  or  his  evil 
thoughts,  and  before  he  is  aware  perhaps  he  has  said  in 
his  heart,  O  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  would  depart  and 
not  disturb  me  by  His  unspoken  rebuke! 

Ah  those  poor  sensual,  swineherding  Gadarenes,  pre- 


The  Gadarene  Choice — Christ,  or  the  Swine?  113 

ferring  worldly  goods  to  spiritual,  counting  the  saving 
of  the  demoniac  men  out  of  the  clutches  of  a  legion  of 
devils  as  a  small  thing  to  set  against  the  loss  of  their 
swine,  may  teach  us  all  a  lesson,  may  warn  us  all  of  a 
very  subtle  danger  that  continually  dogs  our  steps :  the 
danger  of  having  obscured  the  infinite  superiority  of 
spiritual  blessing  to  any  temporal  advantage  or  success 
or  gratification  whatever. 

Let  us  pray  God  to  give  us  ever  a  clear  vision  of  the 
beauty  and  the  blessedness  and  the  joy  of  those  spiritual 
gifts  which  Christ  bestows,  and  of  the  unspeakable  folly, 
as  well  as  the  sin,  of  forfeiting  any  of  them  for  the  sake 
of  what  the  world  can  give.  And  let  us  daily  throw 
wide  open  the  door  of  our  hearts  and  our  homes  and  ask 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  to  abide  with  us  at  whatever  cost  of 
self-indulgence  or  of  worldly  advantage. 


THE  LIMITATION  OF  PROBATION 

FOR   THE   FIFTH   SUNDAY   AFTER   EPIPHANY 

"  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  He  may  be  found;  call  ye  upon  Him  while 
He  is  near." — Isaiah  Iv.  6. 

There  is  no  place  in  all  the  spacious  temple  of  the 
Word  of  God  where  the  voice  of  free  grace  sounds  more 
clearly  or  more  persuasively  than  in  this  chapter. 
"Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,"  cries  the  prophet,  "come 
ye  to  the  waters  !  " — as  if  to  say  there  is  no  fence  around 
the  wells  of  salvation;  they  are  for  every  one  that  thirst- 
eth,  come  whence  he  may.  Yes,  "whosoever  will,  let 
him  take  the  water  of  Ufe  freely." 

Equally  free  is  the  "  wine  and  milk "  of  the  gospel — 
the  feast  which  the  Lord  has  prepared  for  His  children. 
The  man  who  has  "  no  money,"  the  beggar,  is  invited 
to  come  and  "buy"  and  "eat."  This  merchandise  of 
God's  house  is  sold  to  all  comers  "without  money  and 
without  price."  It  is  priceless  in  value,  but  it  can  be 
had  for  the  asldng.  Indeed,  it  can  be  had  on  no  other 
terms.  The  only  coin  that  will  be  accepted  at  this 
counter  is  the  confession  of  need,  of  poverty,  of  hunger. 
"He  hath  filled  the  hungry  with  good  things,  and  the 
rich  He  hath  sent  empty  away."     It  is  a  free  gift. 

Now,  right  in  the  midst  of  these  voices  of  free  grace 
is  heard  this  solemn  utterance  of  our  text :  "  Seek  ye  the 
Lord  while  He  may  he  found;  call  ye  upon  Him  while  He 
is  near".    It  is  plainly  a  warning  voice  of  one  who  sees 

114 


The  Limitation  of  Probation  115 

a  great  danger  and  would  bid  his  fellows  beware.  The 
prophet  speaks  here  like  one  who,  wliile  the  sky  is 
bright  and  the  sea  smooth,  points  to  the  falling  barom- 
eter and  warns  the  shipmaster  of  an  approaching  storm. 

The  haven  of  salvation  is  in  sight ;  the  entrance  is  free ; 
there  is  no  obstacle  in  the  way;  but  beware!  If  you  do 
not  at  once  set  sail  for  it  you  may  be  carried  away  from 
your  course  by  unseen  currents.  Storms  may  arise  and 
your  ship  be  driven  upon  a  rocky  coast  and  lost.  "Seek 
ye  the  Lord  while  He  may  he  found;  call  ye  upon  Him 
while  He  is  near." 

I  desire  to  invite  your  consideration  of  the  truth 
which  these  words  imply,  namely,  that  the  time  may 
come  when  the  Lord  cannot  be  found,  when  He  will  be 
too  far  off  to  hear. 

Now,  first  of  all,  let  us  dismiss  all  idea  that  God 
acts  arbitrarily  or  vindictively.  The  sacred  writers 
indeed  use  what  are  called  anthropomorphic  expressions 
in  speaking  of  God.  This  need  not  surprise  us;  nay,  it 
was  to  be  expected;  it  was  inevitable.  Being  men,  we 
think  as  men,  and  even  in  our  thoughts  of  God 
must  use  the  images  and  ideas  which  belong  to  human 
life.  In  ruder  states  of  civilization  men  will  have 
coarser  conceptions  of  God,  and  will  be  in  danger  of 
interpreting  literally  these  utterances  which  attribute 
to  God  the  actions  and  passions  of  men.  Sometimes, 
however,  the  anthropomorphic  expressions  are  errone- 
ously referred  to  God.  Thus,  in  the  Proverbs,  the 
words  put  into  the  mouth  of  Wisdom  have  frequently 
been  interpreted  as  if  spoken  by  the  Lord:  "Because  I 
have  called  and  ye  refused;  I  have  stretched  out  my 
hand  and  no  man  regarded;  but  ye  have  set  at  naught 
all  my  counsel,  and  would  none  of  my  reproof;  I  also 


ii6        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

will  laugh  at  your  calamity;  I  will  mock  when  your  fear 
Cometh."  But  to  conceive  of  God  holding  such  an  at- 
titude toward  even  the  most  hardened  sinner  is  nothing 
else  than  blasphemy.  In  fact  it  is  the  highly  figura- 
tive language  of  poetry,  intended  by  the  writer  to  con- 
vey a  vivid  impression  of  the  fatal  consequences  of 
turning  a  deaf  ear  to  the  voice  of  wisdom  and  prudence. 
So  in  the  interpretation  of  our  text  we  must  beware  of 
attributing  to  God  an  arbitrary  refusal  to  listen  to  the 
voice  of  the  penitent,  or  an  inexorable  purpose  not  to 
save  the  sinner  because  the  sinner  has  neglected  his  op- 
portunity. No;  if  the  time  comes  when  God  cannot  be 
found,  let  us  be  sure  it  is  not  because  He  will  not.  If 
He  is  far  off,  it  is  not  because  He  has  sternly  with- 
drawn Himself.  But  in  each  case  it  is  because,  by  the 
operation  of  the  laws  of  man's  moral  nature,  he  has  lost 
the  power  of  finding  God;  he  has  drifted  farther  and 
farther  away  from  God,  so  that  to  him  it  appears  God 
cannot  hear. 

Yet,  though  God  does  not  arbitrarily  close  the  door 
of  repentance  against  the  sinner,  though  we  need  never 
give  way  to  the  thought  which  the  psalmist  in  his  de- 
spondency expressed,  "  Hath  God  forgotten  to  be  gra- 
cious? Hath  He  in  anger  shut  up  His  tender  mercies?" 
and  though  it  be  true  that  whenever  man  earnestly  and 
humbly  seeks  after  God  he  will  fhid  Him,  still  it  re- 
mains a  fact  of  experience,  as  it  is  a  prediction  and  a 
doctrine  of  Holy  Scripture,  that  when  we  neglect  the 
opportunity  of  finding  God  we  run  the  risk  of  never 
finding  Him.  If  men  wiU  not  enter  by  the  open  door 
of  salvation  the  time  may  come  when  they  will  find 
the  door  shut,  and  no  tears  or  prayers  or  efforts  avail  to 
open  it.     This  is  the  truth  I  would  urge  upon  your  seri- 


The  Limitation  of  Probation  117 

ous  consideration  to-day.  It  is  one  which  has  upon  it 
the  imprimatur  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  Re- 
member His  exhortation:  "Strive  to  enter  in  at  the 
straight  gate;  for  many,  I  say  unto  you,  will  seek  to 
enter  in  and  shall  not  be  able."  Remember  also  the 
parable  of  the  ten  virgins,  and  that  ineffably  sad  pic- 
ture of  the  five  foolish  ones  who  were  not  ready  when 
the  bridegroom  came,  standing  at  the  closed  door  and 
knocking  in  vain  for  admission.  "Afterward  came  also 
the  other  virgins,  saying,  Lord,  Lord,  open  to  us.  But 
He  answered  and  said,  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  I  know 
you  not." 

Now  there  are  several  obstacles  to  the  reception  and 
due  consideration  of  this  truth. 

1.  The  first  is  the  belief  that  repentance  is  always 
possible,  and  that  whenever  man  will  call  upon  the  Lord 
He  will  hear. 

'  Yes,  repentance  is  always  possible — I  grant  it.  But 
is  it  probable  ?  And  God  is  always  ready  to  hear  the 
'cry  of  the  penitent,  even  to  the  latest  moment  of  hfe. 
Thank  God,  we  know  that.  But  the  question  is.  Is 
it  likely  the  sinner  will  have  this  penitent  spirit  and 
!utter  this  penitent  prayer? 

I  maintain  that  when  a  man  resists  a  strong  current 
of  conviction  which  urges  him  to  repentance,  it  be- 
3omes  increasingly  improbable,  as  years  advance,  that 
lie  ever  will  repent.  There  are  three  laws  which  erect 
oarriers  against  the  probability  of  repentance  in  such  a 
case. 

(a)  The  law  of  evolution.  The  mind  and  the  moral 
lature  are  under  this  law  as  well  as  the  body.  It  im- 
plies a  direction  and  an  aim  in  development.  Both  in 
/he  individual  and  in  the  species  there  is  a  progress  to 


ii8        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

ward  a  certain  goal;  and  this  goal  may  be  a  goal  of  evil  , 
as  well  as  of  good.  In  other  words,  there  is  a  law  of  de-  | 
generation  as  well  as  of  improvement.  I  suppose  every  j 
man's  character  is  in  a  process  of  development  upward  •' 
or  downward.  Perhaps  by  very  slight  and  impercep- 
tible increment,  but  yet  svirely  and  steadily,  he  is  ad- 
vancing toward  a  standard  of  good  or  evil.  Nay,  we 
must  go  farther  (led  by  Scripture  and  by  the  facts  of 
history  and  experience)  and  say  that,  apart  from  the 
regenerating  and  uplifting  influences  of  the  Spirit  of 
God,  every  man's  moral  and  spiritual  nature  tends  to 
that  downward  evolution  we  call  degeneration.  What 
the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  does  for  man  is  this."! 
It  brings  to  bear  upon  his  heart,  upon  the  faculties  of 
his  soul,  a  power  of  life  and  renewal  which  is  capable 
of  changing  the  direction  of  his  moral  development,  of 
starting  his  powers  upon  a  true  evolution  upward,  God- 
ward,  heavenward — as  when  a  plant  "stretches  down 
to  the  dead  world  beneath  it,  touches  its  minerals  and 
gases  with  its  mystery  of  life,  and  brings  them  up  en- 
nobled and  transfigured  to  the  living  sphere."  Now, 
if  this  power  of  spiritual  life  or  regeneration  be  resisted 
(as  is  the  case  whenever  a  man  does  not  yield  to  the 
convictions  which  urge  him  to  repentance),  then  do  you 
not  see  that  he  must  fall  back  into  the  natural  process 
of  evolution,  in  which  there  is  no  force  capable  of  pro- 
ducing this  conversion  of  type,  which  is  essential  to 
true  repentance?  When  that  divine  grace  was  stirring 
his  soul,  when  the  voice  of  the  Holy  Spirit  was  urging 
the  solemn  issues  of  sin  and  salvation,  the  man  was 
within  reach  of  the  Lord;  he  was  not  far  from  thei 
kingdom  of  God;  the  door  of  salvation  was  open;  thei' 
new  Ufe  of  the  kingdom  of  God  was  stretching  downn 


The  Limitation  of  Probation  119 

ts  tendrils  to  touch  his  dead  soul  and  make  it  live  unto 
jod.  Then  it  might  be  said:  ^'God  may  he  found!  He 
s  near!'  But  the  hand  that  was  stretched  out  to  save 
s  rejected  and  the  man  sinks  back  into  the  current  of 
hings  natural,  that  bears  him  downward  to  sin  and 
lot  upward  to  God.  Two  courses  of  development 
)pened  before  him:  one  an  evolution  unto  life  eternal 
)y  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of  Life  Himself;  the  other 
m  evolution  downward  by  the  power  of  the  currents 
)f  evil  that  are  in  the  world  and  in  the  soul.  This  is 
legeneration ;  and  the  man  has  chosen  the  latter.  He 
las  (by  refusing  to  repent  when  the  conviction  was 
itrong  that  he  ought  to  do  so)  surrendered  himself  to 
.he  natural  evolution  of  the  moral  nature,  which  is  to 
!vil  and  not  to  good.  I  ask  is  it  hkely  this  evolution 
vhich  has  been  going  on  dowTiward  will  be  arrested 
md  develop  the  other  way?  Will  the  stream  which 
las  been  running  down  hill  suddenly  stop  and  run  up 
lill?  Or,  if  there  come  again  into  the  man's  life  an 
iwakening  and  a  stirring  of  the  waters  of  the  soul  by 
•he  Spirit  of  God,  is  it  likely  he  -^dll  yield  the  second 
ime  when  he  did  not  the  first?  Will  h  s  soul,  grown 
itronger  in  its  adherence  to  evil,  be  more  hkely  then 
ihan  now  to  throw  open  its  doors  to  the  grace  of  God? 
Vh,  the  probability  is  all  agains;  it,  and  the  warning 
'f  the  prophet  returns  with  added  emphasis  "  Seek  ye 
he  Lord  ivhile  He  may  he  found  ;  call  ye  upon  Him  while 
ie  is  near." 

I  (b)  Another  barrier  to  repentance  is  interposed  by 
he  law  of  continuity.  By  frequent  repetition  of  an  act, 
r  a  course  of  conduct,  a  hab^t  is  formed — and  habit 
pughens  and  hardens  until  it  becomes  Uke  a  sinew  of 
teel.     No  law  is  more  persistent  than  the  law  of  hab  i  1 


I20        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

Now  when  a  man,  before  whom  the  door  of  repentance 
is  open,  closes  it,  and  refuses  the  grace  that  s  proffered 
him,  he  gives  himself  up  to  the  power  of  a  worldly  or 
an  ungodly  life.  Let  him  beware!  He  thinks  he  can 
repent  whenever  he  chooses.  He  postpones  the  evil 
day  of  resistance  to  sin  and  its  tyranny,  "  Go  thy  way 
for  this  time  "  is  his  answer  to  the  preacher  of  right- 
eousness; "when  I  have  a  convenient  season  I  will  call 
for  thee."  It  does  not  occur  to  him  that  habit  is  weav- 
ing about  him  a  chain  which  it  will  be  all  but  impossible 
to  break;  silently,  through  the  days  and  nights,  her 
work  goes  on.  until  at  length  her  victim  is  like  a  pris- 
oner who  wakes  from  sleep  and  finds  himself  loaded 
with  chains.  You  tell  me  repentance  is  always  pos- 
sible. Yes,  I  answer,  but  this  inexorable  law  of  habit 
renders  it  less  and  less  probable,  because  more  and 
more  difficult.  There  is  a  habit  of  irreligion,  just  as 
there  is  a  habit  of  vice.  A  man  becomes  habituated 
to  living  without  God  in  the  world — without  prayer, 
without  a  sense  of  dependence  upon  Him,  without  ref- 
erence to  the  will  and  the  precepts  of  God — and  this 
habit  of  a  worldly  or  an  ungodly  life  is,  perhaps,  as 
hard  to  break  as  the  habit  of  intoxication  or  any  other 
form  of  vice.  Oh,  when  I  think  of  the  fatal  power  and 
persistency  of  the  habit  of  irreligion.  I  feel  that  words 
fail  to  express  the  perU  of  stiffing  religious  conviction 
and  delaying  repentance!  Solemn  indeed  is  the  warn- 
ing of  the  prophet,  "Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  He  may 
be  found;  caU  ye  upon  Him  while  He  is  near." 

(c)  Still  another  barrier  to  repentance  is  suggested 
by  what  I  may  call  the  law  of  the  experience  of  life.  Op- 
portunities present  themselves  to  us;  if  we  neglect 
them,  they  pass,  and,  as  a  rule,  never   return  again. 


The  Limitation  of  Probation  121 

The  door  closes,  and  for  us  opens  again  never-more. 
Let  us  apply  the  principle  of  our  text  to  the  affairs  of 
this  world  and  see  how  complete  the  analogy  is.  We 
might  go  into  our  pubUc  schools  and  say  to  the  youth 
there:  "Seek  manly  vigor  while  it  may  be  found;  call 
ye  upon  the  goddess  of  health  while  she  is  near."  Let 
them  fail  to  seek  it!  Let  them  neglect  to  call  during 
those  fleeting  years  of  youth  and  the  opportunity  passes. 
Repentance  then  mil  be  too  late.  We  say  to  our  chil- 
dren, in  effect,  "Seek  knowledge  while  it  may  be  found; 
call  upon  learning  while  it  is  near."  The  days  of  facile 
acquisition  when  the  mind  is  capable  of  development 
and  culture,  pass.  If  they  are  allowed  to  slip  by  un- 
improved, it  is  seldom  indeed  that  the  neglect  can  be 
repaired;  the  opportunity  is  lost  and  cannot  be  recov- 
ered. We  say  to  our  young  men :  "  Seek  to  form  busi- 
ness habits  while  they  may  be  found;  cultivate  method 
and  diligence  while  they  can  be  acquired."  Neglect 
your  opportunities;  form  bad  habits — and  after  a  while 
it  will  be  too  late  to  change,  the  mind  and  the  char- 
acter will  have  become  crystallized  in  ways  of  negli- 
gence and  shiftlessness.  This  is  the  record  and  this  the 
lesson  which  life  in  all  its  manifold  experiences  is  con- 
tinually reading  us.  It  ought  to  teach  us  by  the  force 
of  a  very  vivid  analogy  how  great  is  the  peril  of  neg- 
lecting the  opportunities  of  spiritual  growth.  It  ought 
to  show  us  the  folly  of  postponing  the  great  religious 
issue  of  life  because  we  fancy  we  can  meet  it  and  settle 
it  at  our  future  convenience.  Ah,  repentance  is  a  duty 
which  we  neglect  at  our  peril!  "God  commandeth  all 
men  everywhere  to  repent."  It  cannot  be  postponed 
one  hour  without  guilt,  without  danger! 
Oh,  my  brothers,  I  beseech  you  "  that  ye  receive  not 


122        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

the  grace  of  God  in  vain."  "Seek  ye  the  Lord  while 
He  may  be  found — while  He  may  be  found  !  " 

2,  But  I  must  hasten  to  the  consideration  of  aiiother 
obstacle  to  the  due  consideration  of  the  solemn  truth 
which  our  text  presents.  Many  refuse  to  recognize  the 
peril  of  neglecting  the  salvation  of  the  gospel  because 
they  think  they  can  repent  in  another  life,  if  they  should 
fail  to  do  it  in  this.  To  the  prophet's  warning,  "Seek 
ye  the  Lord  while  He  may  he  found''  they  reply  (to  all 
intents)  thus :  "  We  can  seek  the  Lord  at  any  time.  Re- 
pentance will  always  be  possible;  even  after  death  we 
may  repent.  In  fact  death  will  no  doubt  so  enlighten 
the  minds  of  men  that  they  will  be  more  likely  then 
than  now  to  give  heed  to  their  spiritual  interests."  But 
what  sort  of  reasoning  is  tliis?  Let  us  look  at  it.  Re- 
pentance is  a  change  of  mind;  a  change  of  purpose;  a 
change  of  the  great  issues  of  being:  ay,  a  change  of 
masters!  It  touches  at  vital  points  the  whole  spiritual 
and  moral  and  physical  nature.  Now  what  is  asserted 
is  that  the  change  involved  in  death  will  not  only  leave 
man  free  to  transact  then  this  great,  critical  soul- 
business,  but  will  be  favorable  to  it! 

The  ship  of  human  nature  is  not  right.  Her  cargo 
has  listed.  She  careens  dangerously.  To  seek  God 
is  to  seek  the  only  power  that  can  right  her.  Wliat 
then?  Shall  we  not  seek  Him  at  once?  No,  say  these 
counsellors,  let  the  ship  labor  on  till  she  comes  to  the 
breakers,  then  we  will  right  her;  nay,  at  the  line  we 
call  death  she  will  right  herself  But  why?  Wliat 
magic  power  is  there  in  death  that  it  should  change  the 
inclinations,  the  habits,  the  moral  results  of  a  lifetime? 
Why  shall  death  be  able  to  reverse  the  helm  when  life 
has  found  herself  powerless  to  do  it?    Is  death  the 


The  Limitation  of  Probation  123 

sacrament  of  eternal  life?  Has  it  the  balm  of  Gilead? 
Is  it  the  regenerator  and  purifier  of  the  heart?  Are 
the  cold  waters  of  that  dark  river  a  cleansing  flood 
which  \\all  wash  away  the  defilement  of  a  lifetime? 
Will  a  man  emerge  from  death  purified  of  his  sins, 
changed  in  his  moral  fibre?  Does  reason  suggest  such 
a  change  by  such  an  instrumentahty?  Nay,  does  not 
reason  say,  as  the  Scripture  does,  "Be  not  deceived, 
God  is  not  mocked:  for  whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that 
shall  he  also  reap"?  Ah,  this  expectation  of  repent- 
ance after  death  has  no  more  basis  in  reason  or  science 
than  it  has  in  the  Bible — and  the  Bible  gives  us  plainly 
to  understand  that  the  basis  of  future  judgment  will  be 
"the  deeds  done  in  the  body,"  and  that  (certainly  for 
those  who  have  heard  the  gospel  here)  the  great  issues 
of  eternal  destiny  are  settled  here  in  this  world. 

Yes,  reason  and  experience  and  Scripture  unite  in 
the  solemn  warning  of  the  text :  "  Seek  ije  the  Lord  while 
He  may  be  found;  call  ye  upon  Him  while  He  is  near." 

3.  Of  course  there  is  a  refuge  from  the  solemn  truth 
which  I  have  urged  to-day  in  the  various  theories  of 
universalism.  There  are  many  religious  teachers  who, 
still  holchng  to  future  punishment,  anticipate  a  final 
restoration  to  God  of  eveiy  human  soul  that  has  wan- 
dered away  from  Him.  There  are  others  who  think 
that  hope  will  never  be  extinguished,  even  for  the 
lost,  and  that  it  will  remain  possible  to  all  eternity 
that  souls  may  see  their  error  and  repent  and  be  saved. 

For  my  owm  part  I  cannot  find  any  warrant  in  the 
words  of  Christ  for  such  theories  or  such  hopes.  But 
suppose  we  grant  the  possibility  of  such  a  hope.  Will 
any  man  be  so  unutterably  foolish  as  to  postpone  his 
repentance  upon  the  bare  possibility  that  there  may  be 


124        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

a  hope  in  the  eternal  state?  Will  you  hang  your  eternal 
destiny  upon  such  a  slender  thread?  Will  you  risk 
the  highest  interests  of  your  being  upon  the  flimsy 
chance  that  there  may  be  a  door  of  repentance  opened 
on  the  far-off  shore  of  eternity?  Would  not  that  be, 
indeed,  to  embark  upon  the  wide  ocean  on  a  plank?  I 
point  you  rather  to  the  ark  of  God,  which  stands  with 
wide-open  door  and  offers  a  sure  refuge  and  a  certain 
entrance  into  the  eternal  haven.  Do  not  wait  till  the 
floods  have  come  and  the  door  is  shut!  "Behold  now 
is  the  accepted  time!  Behold  now  is  the  day  of  sal- 
vation!" "Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  He  may  be  found; 
call  ye  upon  Him  while  He  is  near." 


THE  TRANSFORMING  ENERGY  OF  THE 
GOSPEL 

FOR   THE   SIXTH   SUNDAY   AFTER   THE   EPIPHANY 

"Put  on  the  new  man!" — Eph.  iv.  24. 

"Arise,  take  up  thy  bed,  and  go  unto  thine  house." — Matt.  ix.  6. 

I  PUT  side  by  side  these  two  utterances  because  they 
illustrate,  each  in  its  own  way,  a  great  principle  or  char- 
acteristic of  the  gospel  which  I  wish  to  present  to 
your  thought  this  morning. 

The  young  prophet  of  Nazareth  bids  a  poor  paralyzed 
man  "Arise,  take  up  thy  bed  and  ivalk."  What  a  mockery 
of  his  helplessness,  one  might  have  said,  looking  at  his 
poor  palsied  Umbs! 

"  Put  on  the  new  man,"  says  the  Christian  apostle,  ad- 
dressing himself  to  a  society  paralyzed  on  its  moral  side 
by  the  most  hideous  debaucheries,  the  most  abominable 
vices.  What  a  mockery,  one  might  say  again,  to  en- 
join purity  and  hoUness  upon  men  and  women  steeped 
to  the  lips,  as  these  Ephesians  had  been,  in  corruption 
and  all  unclearmess! 

And  yet,  behold!  in  each  case  the  precept  is  obeyed. 
With  God  all  things  are  possible.  The  helpless  para- 
l5^ic  arises,  takes  up  his  bed,  and  departs  to  his  house. 
And  these  citizens  of  corrupt  and  dissolute  Ephesus  like- 
wise arise  out  of  the  palsy  of  their  depraved  and  vicious 
lives,  "and  put  on  the  new  man,  which  after  God  is 
created  in  righteousness  and  true  holiness." 

125 


126        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

What  is  the  explanation  of  a  result  so  surprising? 
There  can  be  but  one  answer.  A  miracle  was  wrought 
in  each  case.  Power  went  forth  from  Jesus  Christ  and 
gave  strength  and  vitahty  to  those  palsied  limbs.  Power 
went  forth  again,  and  from  the  same  source,  and  renewed 
the  palsied  moral  nature  of  those  to  whom  the  apostle 
addressed  himself.  The  one  was  a  physical  miracle,  the 
other  a  moral  miracle:  but  both  were  wrought  by  the 
same  divine  power  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God. 

My  brethren,  it  is  the  faith  of  the  Christian  Church — 
without  which  it  could  not  exist,  save  as  a  mere  ecclesi- 
astical skeleton,  dressed  out,  indeed,  in  a  purple  robe, 
and  holding  a  regal  sceptre,  which  are,  however,  but  the 
mockery  of  power — that  the  gospel  of  Christ  carries  with 
it  in  all  ages  and  in  all  lands  that  same  supernatural  and 
divine  power,  and  works  forever  the  same  great  miracles 
of  moral  and  spiritual  renewal. 

1.  In  considering  this  unique  feature  of  the  religion  of 
Christ  let  me  ask  you,  first  of  all,  to  carefully  note  the 
connection  and  the  order  it  asserts  between  the  forgive- 
ness of  sin  and  the  conquest  of  sin,  between  the  absolu- 
tion which  Christ  pronounces  and  the  power  which  He 
bestows  to  arise  and  walk  in  newness  of  life.  The  con- 
nection is  indissoluble,  and  the  order  is  irreversible. 
There  can  be  no  newness  of  life  till  there  is  first  forgive- 
ness of  sin.  If  there  is  forgiveness  of  sin,  there  must  be 
newness  of  life.  Before  Jesus  Christ  bid  the  poor  para- 
lytic "Arise  and  walk,"  he  had  first  said,  "Son,  be  of 
good  cheer,  thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee."  Perhaps  he 
could  not  have  been  healed  of  the  palsy  till  he  had  first 
been  loosed  from  the  sins  which  were,  it  seems  Hkely, 
the  cause  of  the  palsy.  At  any  rate,  in  the  spiritual 
sphere  that  order  is  inviolable — first  forgiveness,  then 


* 


The  Transforming  Energy  of  the  Gospel    127 

renewal.  So  it  was  that  before  St.  Paul  exhorted  the 
Ephesians  to  "put  on  the  new  man/'  he  had  first 
preached  unto  them  the  forgiveness  of  sin  through  Christ 
— "  in  whom  we  have  redemption  through  His  blood,  the 
forgiveness  of  sins,  according  to  the  riches  of  His  grace." 
Now  there  is  a  reason  for  this  inviolable  order  between 
forgiveness  and  renewal.  It  is  that  the  latter  is  the  fruit 
of  the  former.  When  that  wonderful  di\'ine  fact  of  per- 
fect remission  and  forgiveness  is  realized  there  is  gen- 
erated a  hatred  of  sin  and  a  love  of  holiness.  A  new 
hope  springs  up.  A  new  longing  is  awakened.  A  new 
aspiration  stirs  within  the  soul.  The  love  of  Christ — that 
love  which  met  Gethsemane  and  Calvary  for  us — con- 
straineth  us.  And  it  is  an  omnipotent  constraint.  No 
such  power  as  what  Dr.  Chalmers  called  ''the  expulsive 
power  of  a  new  affection!" 

It  is  to  this  the  apostle  appeals  when  he  says,  "  Ye 
are  not  your  own,  ye  are  bought  with  a  price."  And 
again,  "  I  beseech  you  therefore  by  the  mercies  of  God, 
that  ye  present  your  bodies  a  hving  sacrifice,  holy,  ac- 
ceptable unto  God,  which  is  your  reasonable  service."  If 
he  himself  was  crucified  unto  the  world,  it  was  the  love 
of  Christ  sliining  from  His  wondrous  Cross  that  did  it! 
"God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save  in  the  Cross  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  through  which  the  world  hath 
been  crucified  unto  me,  and  I  unto  the  world." 

What  has  now  been  said  furnishes  a  complete  answer 
to  one  of  the  more  recent  objections  alleged  against  the 
Christian  religion.  It  is  from  the  pen  of  one  of  the  most 
trenchant  and  powerful  writers  among  the  whole  army 
of  unbelievers — not  a  vulgar,  shallow  rhetorician,  whose 
coarseness  is  only  equalled  by  the  inconclusiveness  of 
his  reasoning — but  a  cultivated   scholar,  a  subtle  rea- 


128        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

soner,  a  philosophical  tliinker.  The  objection  is  that 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  forgiveness  of  sin  upon  repent- 
ance makes  light  of  morality — is,  in  fact,  an  encourage- 
ment to  immorality.  He  even  dares  to  assail  the  act  of 
Christ  on  the  Cross  in  promising  an  immediate  entrance 
into  paradise  to  the  penitent  thief.  This  he  thinks  was 
a  serious  slight  passed  upon  morality,  and  justifies  ag- 
nostics like  himself  in  declaring  that  Christianity  shows 
itself  hostile  to  morality  in  this  world.* 

Such  an  objection,  you  will  observe,  completely  loses 
sight  of,  or  perhaps  we  ought  to  say,  completely  fails  to 
recognize,  the  close  and  vital  connection  which  I  have 
just  pointed  out,  and  upon  which  the  New  Testament 
writers  constantly  insist,  between  the  forgiveness  of  sin 
and  the  forsaking  of  sin.  When  this  is  recognized  the 
objection  completely  loses  its  force,  for  it  is  then  seen 
that  the  Christian  doctrine  of  forgiveness  is  the  highest 
incentive  to  morality.  The  man  who,  upon  genuine 
repentance,  receives  assurance  of  forgiveness,  is  at  the 
same  time  and  by  the  same  act  quickened  to  a  new  pur- 
pose, a  new  aspiration,  a  new  life.  The  forsaking  of  sin, 
the  practice  of  virtue,  the  walking  in  newness  of  life,  is 
made  by  the  gospel  the  test  of  the  genuineness  of  re- 
pentance, the  proof  of  the  reality  of  the  gift  of  pardon. 
The  paralytic  should  rise  and  walk  that  men  might  know 
by  that  proof  that  the  Son  of  Man  had  power  on  earth  to 
forgive  sins.  And  fearlessly  may  it  be  asserted  by  the 
defender  of  the  faith  that  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
forgiveness  of  sins  is  justified  by  the  fruits  it  has  pro- 
duced, by  the  transformation  of  the  lives  and  conduct 
of  even  the  worst  of  men,  and  by  the  elevation  of  the 

*  "The Service  of  Man."  By  Cotter  Morrison,  1888,  pp.  110, 
111. 


1 


The  Transforming  Energy  of  the  Gospel   129 

standard  of  morality  in  those  communities  in  which 
there  has  been  any  genuine  acceptance  of  the  Christian 
rehgion. 

With  respect  to  the  thief  on  the  cross,  whose  pardon 
in  the  article  of  death  this  brilliant  agnostic  writer  looks 
upon  as  a  slight  passed  upon  morality,  what,  let  us  ask, 
was  the  real  measure  of  his  dying  utterance?  Was  it, 
as  is  suggested,  a  mere  "deferential  speech"  to  Christ? 
Nay,  was  it  not  rather  an  amazing  act  of  faith  and 
courage  to  acknowledge  that  crucified  Nazarene,  de- 
spised and  rejected  by  the  whole  world  as  He  was;  the 
object  of  scorn  and  reproach  to  Jews  and  Gentiles;  de- 
feated, humiliated,  loaded  with  every  mark  of  igno- 
miny that  malice  could  devise;  a  discredited  teacher, 
forsaken  even  by  His  own  disciples;  a  professed  Mes- 
siah, stripped  of  the  last  pretence  of  divine  credentials ; 
a  king,  whose  only  purple  is  a  robe  of  mockery,  whose 
only  sceptre  is  a  reed,  whose  only  cro\\Ti  is  a  crown  of 
thorns;  a  Redeemer  and  Dehverer,  who  carmot  even 
save  Himself,  but  hangs  there  nailed,  like  himself,  to  a 
cross,  suffering,  hke  himself,  intensest  physical  torture, 
soon,  hke  himself,  to  die  the  death — I  say,  to  acknowl- 
edge such  an  one  as  his  Lord  and  his  King,  was  one  of 
the  sublimest  acts  of  faith  and  courage  the  sun  ever 
witnessed.  Surely  it  is  pitiful  blindness  that  can  see  in 
the  pardon  of  such  a  soul,  after  such  an  act  of  repentance 
and  faith  and  courage,"  a  slight  passed  upon  morahty  " ! 
The  question  is  not,  as  this  writer  puts  it,  "  What  did  his 
repentance  do  to  cancel"  his  "past  evil  life"?  (though 
it  may  be  truly  said  the  good  influence  of  his  dying  act 
of  faith  and  penitence  has  far  outweighed  the  evil  in- 
fluence of  liis  robber's  career),  but  is  rather  this.  What 
evidence  did  this  repentance  afford  that  here  was  a  soul 


130        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

which  had  experienced  a  moral  and  spiritual  transfor- 
mation, and  which  had  laid  hold  of  the  hand  of  God's 
grace,  stretched  forth  to  save  it? 

But  we  will  summon  this  very  agnostic  writer,  who,  as 
we  have  seen,  assails  the  great  doctrine  of  forgiveness 
of  sin  as  tending  to  immorality,  as  a  witness  to  the  unique 
and  unparalleled  moral  power  of  the  Christian  doctrine 
over  the  human  heart.  Hear  the  admissions  which  es- 
cape from  this  prince  of  agnostics :  "  Its  influence  on  the 
spiritual  side  of  characters  naturally  susceptible  to  its 
action  has  been  transcendent,  overpowering,  and  un- 
paralleled." And  again:  "The  true  Christian  saint, 
though  a  rare  phenomenon,  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
to  be  witnessed  in  the  moral  world,  so  lofty,  so  pure,  so 
attractive."  Yet  again:  ''What  needs  admitting,  or 
rather  proclaiming,  by  agnostics  who  would  be  just,  is, 
that  the  Christian  doctrine  has  a  power  of  cultivating 
and  developing  saintliness  which  has  no  equal  in  any 
other  creed  or  philosophy.  ...  It  strengthens  the  will, 
raises  and  purifies  the  affections,  and  finally  achieves  a 
conquest  over  the  baser  self  in  man,  of  which  the  result 
is  a  character  none  the  less  beautiful  and  soul-subduing 
because  it  is  wholly  beyond  imitation  by  the  less  spirit- 
ually endowed."  * 

What  better  proof  could  be  asked  that  the  Son  of  Man 
hath  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins,  and  that  His  doc- 
trine of  forgiveness  is  true,  than  this  marvellous  power 
which  the  agnostic  himself  admits  that  Christianity 
possesses  over  the  lives  and  conduct  and  character  of 
those  who  accept  it? 

2.  But  let  us  turn  to  another  aspect  of  our  subject. 
These  words  of  the  apostle  to  the  men  of  Ephesus 
*  "  The  Service  of  Man,"  pp.  192,  196,  197. 


The  Transforming  Energy  of  the  Gospel    131 

"Put  on  the  neio  man; "  these  words  of  Jesus  to  the  par- 
alytic, bidding  him  "arise  and  walk,"  are  more  than  a 
summons  to  hoHness — they  are  an  assurance  that  holi- 
ness is  possible.  With  Christ's  word  of  command  to 
the  young  man  lying  helpless  on  his  bed,  "Arise  and 
take  up  thy  bed  and  walk,"  there  went  forth  a  quick- 
ening power  that  restored  the  palsied  hmbs  and  sent 
the  life-blood  coursing  through  his  veins  again.  And 
so  the  apostolic  precept,  "Put  on  the  new  man,"  car- 
ried with  it  for  the  Ephesians,  and  carries  with  it  for 
you  and  me  to-day,  the  divine  assurance  that  newness 
of  life  is  possible.  It  comes  as  an  evangel  of  hope,  as 
a  message  of  liberty,  to  our  poor,  palsied,  human  nature. 

Yes,  this  gospel,  which  demands  purity  and  upright- 
ness and  truth,  gives  men  power  to  be  true,  to  be  up- 
right, to  be  pure.  That  is  why  it  is  a  gospel.  That 
is  why  our  weak  and  sinful  humanity  welcomes  it  as 
good  news  from  God.  "As  many  as  received  Him,  to 
them  gave  He  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God." 

Thank  God  it  is  as  true  to-day  as  it  ever  was — as 
true  for  you  and  me  as  it  was  for  those  men  of  Ephesus 
to  whom  St.  Paul  wrote.  The  same  "strong  Son  of 
God,  Immortal  Love,"  is  calhng  us  to  arise  and  walk 
in  newness  of  life.  If  we  will  but  listen  to  His  call — 
if  we  will  but  open  our  souls  to  Him,  He  will  pour  into 
them  His  Ufe-giving,  healing  grace,  and  again  the  help- 
less paralytic  will  spring  to  his  feet,  full  of  health  and 
power  to  walk  in  God's  ways.  The  old  paralysis  of 
the  will  mil  be  gone ;  the  old  evil  habit  will  be  conquered 
the  old  rebellious  spirit  will  be  subdued  and  chastened. 
We  shall  put  off  the  old  man  and  put  on  the  new. 

Now  let  me  remind  you,  my  brethren,  that  as  then, 
so  now,  the  voice  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  only  voice  of 


132         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

hope  and  power  that  comes  to  the  eager  ears  of  man.  I 
Philosophy  never  had  even  a  message  for  the  multi- 
tude— it  was  for  the  chosen  few.  A  gospel  it  never 
had — nor  has  to-day.  I  need  not  say  that  science  has 
no  evangel  of  hope  to  a  sinful  world.  As  to  agnosticism, 
hear  its  latest  apostle,  that  able  and  candid  writer  I 
have  quoted  this  morning:  "There  is  no  remedy  for  a 
bad  heart. "  "  Men  will  be  bad,  do  what  we  will.  •  •  • 
The  welfare  of  society  demands  the  suppression  or 
elimination  of  bad  men."  He  repudiates  moral  respon- 
sibility in  so  many  words :  "  Nothing  is  more  certain 
than  that  no  man  makes  his  own  character.  That  is  .. 
done  for  him  by  his  parents  or  his  ancestors.  .  .  . 
The  sooner  the  idea  of  moral  responsibility  is  got  rid  of 
the  better  it  will  be  for  society." 

To  such  a  complexion  comes  at  last  that  boasted  wis- 
dom which  rejects  the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God.  Mark 
it  well,  my  brethren,  it  has  no  hand  of  help  for  a  sinful 
man,  it  simply  turns  its  back  upon  him  with  the  heart- 
less, hopeless  conclusion,  "  There  is  no  remedy  for  a  bad 
heart."  It  has  no  message  of  hope  to  our  weak  hu- 
manity, palsied  by  evil  habit — it  abandons  it  to  its  fate. 
It  repudiates  moral  responsibility,  and  assures  us  that 
character  is  wholly  an  affair  of  heredity  and  environ- 
ment. "A  man  with  a  criminal  nature  and  education, 
under  given  circumstances  of  temptation,  can  no  more 
help  committing  crime  than  he  could  help  having  a 
headache."  *  In  fine,  it  mocks  at  the  idea  of  freedom 
of  will,  or  of  choice,  and  would  plunge  the  human  race 
headlong  into  the  gulf  of  a  hopeless  fatalism  from 
which  there  is  no  escape. 

What  a  contrast  to  all  this  is  the  message  of  love  and 
*  "The  Service  of  Man,"  pp.  289,  293,  295. 


The  Transforming  Energy  of  the  Gospel    133 

power  that  the  Church  of  the  living  God  is  commis- 
sioned to  proclaim  "to  every  creature,"  and  which  she 
has  proclaimed,  never  in  vain,  from  age  to  age,  from 
shore  to  shore.  It  tells  of  a  new  life  that  God  will  give 
His  children,  of  a  new  creation  bestowed  by  Jesus 
Christ,  of  a  new  heart  that  He  will  give  through  the 
mighty  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  this  gospel  is 
for  all  men  without  distinction — the  rich  and  the  poor, 
the  great  and  the  small,  the  wise  and  the  simple.  It  is 
for  the  sinful,  too — ay,  for  the  lost  and  the  ruined,  for 
those  who  have  wandered  the  farthest  and  sunk  the 
lowest.  "Come,  now,  let  us  reason  together,  saith  the 
Lord;  though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet  they  shall  be  as 
white  as  snow;  though  they  be  red  like  crimson  they 
shall  be  as  wool." 

And  now,  before  I  conclude,  let  me  ask  you  Chris- 
tians, to  whom  I  speak,  to  consider  very  seriously  in- 
deed the  practical  significance  of  this  summons  of  the 
Christian  apostle,  this  command  of  Christ  Himself,  to 
put  off  the  old  man  with  his  evil  deeds — with  his  car- 
nality, his  pride,  his  unholy  passions,  his  selfishness — 
and  to  put  on  the  new  man,  even  the  spirit  and  the  fife 
of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  a  call  to  ever-renewed  self-con- 
secration: "Put  on  the  new  man."  Be  ever  putting  on 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  by  a  succession  of  acts  of  will 
and  faith,  of  prayer  and  consecration.  Clothe  your- 
selves daily  with  His  spirit,  with  His  life,  with  His 
love.  You  are  called  to  the  high  calling  of  a  Christian 
— walk  worthy  of  it!  You  are  risen  with  Christ — seek 
those  things  which  are  above! 

I  make  appeal  to  every  disciple  of  Christ.  In  God's 
name  I  bid  you  "  Put  on  the  new  man."  Don't  be  sat- 
isfied to  wear  those  old  tattered  garments  of  sin  and 


134        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

selfishness  and  worldliness — put  them  off;  cast  them 
from  you;  rise  to  newness  of  hfe;  put  ye  on  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  Ah,  my  brethren,  the  sneer  of  the  sceptic 
is  but  too  true,  "An  unselfish  agnostic  is  better  than  a 
selfish  Christian" — yes,  because  a  selfish  man  is  not  a 
Christian,  but  only  a  pretender  to  so  great  a  name. 
But  how  many  of  us,  my  brethren,  give  occasion  to 
such  a  sneer? 

' '  We  bear  the  name  of  Christian, 
His  name  and  sign  we  bear," 

but  have  we  really  put  on  Christ?  Is  the  manner  of 
our  life  Christian?  What  manner  of  spirit  are  we  of? 
Is  it  not  true  that  many  of  us  are  living — I  will  not 
say  below  our  privileges,  but  in  a  manner  altogether 
inconsistent  with  the  high  and  holy  calling  of  the  dis- 
ciples of  Christ?  Our  Christian  name  implies  that  we 
are  "risen  with  Christ" — but  our  conduct,  what  does 
that  imply?  Our  thoughts,  our  desires,  our  ambitions — 
what  do  they  imply? 

The  briUiant  agnostic  objector  says:  "The  inefficacy 
of  sermons  chiefly  depends  on  the  transcendent  dispro- 
portion between  the  doctrine  preached  and  the  capac- 
ity to  receive  it  by  the  audience  addressed,"  which  he 
describes  as  "a  mixed  congregation,  consisting  of  men 
whose  thoughts  are  absorbed  in  business,  and  women 
occupied  with  dress  and  frivolities."  He  thinks  such 
people  cannot  respond  to  such  an  exalted  standard  of 
living  as  Christianity  proposes.  Our  answer  is,  Jesus 
Christ  thought  differently;  He  held  up  His  standard  of 
perfection  to  publicans  and  sinners,  and  they  were 
moved,  melted,  transformed  by  it.  The  Magdalens  and  i 
the  Matthews  and  the  Zacchseuses  were  lifted  by  it  out 


The  Transforming  Energy  of  the  Gospel   135 

of  abysmal  depths  of  pollution  and  greed  on  to  the  plane 
of  a  Christly  life.  And  identical  was  the  practice  and 
the  experience  of  the  apostles.  To  go  no  farther,  take 
the  Church  at  Ephesus  as  an  example.  Nowhere  was 
there  a  more  corrupt  society,  a  deeper  moral  degrada- 
tion, and  to  no  people  was  there  ever  held  up  a  higher 
standard  or  revealed  a  more  heavenly  vision  of  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  than  in  St.  Paul's  letter  to  them, 
which  Coleridge  calls  "the  divinest  composition  of 
man,"  Yet  they  responded  to  this  gospel  of  purity; 
they  were  transformed  by  it. 

Ah,  my  brethren,  we  have  learned  from  our  Master 
that  even  the  most  deeply  fallen  souls  retain  their  kin- 
ship to  the  divine,  and  can  be  touched  to  the  finer 
issues  by  the  beauty  of  holiness  that  shines  in  the  face 
of  Jesus  Christ.  However  stained  and  defiled  the  soul 
may  be,  the  stamp  of  the  heavenly  mint  is  upon  it  still 
— the  image  and  superscription  of  the  great  King!  And 
so  to-day  I  knock  at  the  door  of  every  heart  in  this  as- 
sembly and  make  appeal  for  the  higher  and  better 
Christ-life.  "Put  on  the  new  man,"  I  say  to  you  who 
move  in  the  arena  of  the  world's  business,  in  the  marts 
of  trade,  in  the  markets,  in  the  courts,  in  the  forum,  in 
the  national  legislature,  in  the  Senate  chamber. 

My  brother  men,  you  can  and  you  ought  to  serve 
God  in  your  business.  Put  on,  in  your  business  trans- 
actions, I  pray  you,  this  garment  of  the  higher,  nobler 
manhood  revealed  in  Christ !  Break  the  fetters  of  mere 
routine  with  which  your  business  would  bind  you,  and 
be  free  to  admit  the  play  of  higher  and  better  aspira- 
tions! Don't  be  a  mere  machine,  a  mere  drudge,  a 
mere  breadwinner,  or  money-maker,  or  pleasure-seeker, 
or  popularity-monger,  or  trainbearer  of  fashion!     "Put 


136         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 


on  the  new  man" — the  nobler  man  that  soars  above 
these  merely  temporal  aims  and  seeks  the  goal  of  a 
Christ-like  manhood.  It  is  the  voice  and  the  com- 
mand of  the  omnipotent  Christ  that  bids  you  arise  and 
walk  in  newness  of  life ! 


THE    CHRISTIAN    CALLING   AND    ELECTION 

FOR   SEPTUAGESIMA  SUNDAY 

"Many  are  called,  but  few  chosen." — Matt.  xxii.  14. 

We  are  here  confronted  by  that  sad  contrast  between 
the  "many"  and  the  "few"  which  runs  through  the 
whole  of  our  Lord's  ministry,  through  the  whole  his- 
tory of  the  Church,  through  the  whole  experience  of 
life.  Out  of  the  waters  of  the  flood  few — that  is,  eight 
persons — took  refuge  in  the  ark  and  were  saved.  Out 
of  the  fire  that  destroyed  the  cities  of  the  plain  only  a 
few — Lot  and  his  two  daughters — escaped.  Of  the  mul- 
titude that  came  out  of  Egypt  and  journeyed  forty 
years  in  the  wilderness  only  two — Caleb  and  Joshua — 
entered  at  last  the  land  of  promise.  The  Son  of  God 
came  to  earth,  and  for  three  wondrous  years  taught  and 
wrought  miracles  among  men;  but  only  a  little  flock 
recognized  His  mission  and  obeyed  His  call.  The 
"many"  rejected  Him;  only  the  "few"  received  and 
followed  Him. 

So  it  has  ever  been.  So  it  is  to-day.  The  "many" 
seem  insensible  to  the  solemn  issues  of  life,  unconscious 
of  its  great  responsibilities,  blind  to  its  deepest,  holiest 
meaning.  It  is  the  "few"  who  really  tread  the  paths 
of  virtue  and  of  holiness.  Thus  the  facts  of  experi- 
ence answer  to  the  witness  of  revelation,  and  ethical 
as  well  as  religious  teachers  have  recognized  it.     For 

137 


138         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

example,  in  an  ancient,  pre-Christian  allegory  of  one 
of  the  disciples  of  Socrates  (Cebes),  we  read:  "Seest 
thou  not  a  certain  small  door,  and  a  pathway  before 
the  door,  in  noway  crowded;  but  few,  very  few,  go  in 
thereat?  This  is  the  way  of  true  discipline."  This 
is  not,  indeed,  a  pleasant  gospel  to  preach,  nor  a  popu- 
lar; but  every  Christian  minister  may  do  well  to  re- 
solve, with  Horace  Bushnell,  "  never  to  make  a  gospel — 
either  to  have  no  gospel  at  all,  or  to  accept  the  gospel 
that  is  given."  For  surely  it  is  not  without  a  very 
serious  significance  that  when  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
had  said  of  the  narrow  way,  ''Few  there  be  that  find 
it,"  He  immediately  added,  "  Beware  of  false  prophets  !  " 

Moreover,  this  solemn  fact,  here  declared  by  our  Lord, 
that  "many  are  called,  hut  few  chosen,"  is  timely  as  well 
as  true.  It  is  especially  emphasized  by  our  Church 
in  her  services  on  Septuagesima  Sunday.  It  is  a  truth 
appropriate  for  the  weeks  which  form  the  threshold  of 
Lent,  the  great  season  of  self-scrutiny  and  self-denial. 

Now,  in  taking  up  this  truth  for  our  consideration 
this  morning,  let  me  ask  you  to  observe  the  emphasis 
which  Jesus  Christ  put  upon  it  in  His  teaching.  Twice 
within  the  short  space  of  two  chapters  it  is  recorded  by 
St.  Matthew,  and  each  time  as  the  central  truth  of  one 
of  His  parables,  "Many  are  called,  hut  few  chosen." 
Again,  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  He  says:  "Enter 
ye  in  at  the  narrow  gate;  for  wide  is  the  gate  and  broad 
is  the  way  that  leadeth  to  destruction,  and  many  there 
be  which  go  in  thereat:  because  narrow  is  the  gate  and 
straitened  is  the  way  which  leadeth  unto  life,  and  few 
there  be  that  find  it  "  (Matt.  vii.  13,  14).  Remember, 
too,  the  occasion  when  some  one  made  the  inquiry, 
"Lord,  are  there  few  that  be  saved?"  and  His  reply, 


The  Christian  Calling  and  Election        139 

"Strive  to  enter  in  at  the  narrow  gate;  for  many,  I  say 
unto  you,  will  seek  to  enter  in  and  shall  not  be  able." 
Surely  this  emphasis,  this  frequent  reiteration  of  the 
great  Teacher  and  Saviour  of  men  cannot  but  suggest 
to  us  that  the  truth  so  pressed  upon  our  attention  is 
one  of  deep  and  very  serious  import.  As  such,  my 
brethren,  let  us  consider  it. 

There  are  three  thoughts  which  I  would  put  before 
you  this  morning. 

I.  The  first  is  the  principle  on  which  the  choice  is  de- 
termined. I  wish  first  to  inquire  on  what  principle 
this  choice  here  referred  to  is  made;  and  I  answer  in 
the  clear  hght  of  the  teaching  of  Christ  and  His  apostles : 
It  is  not  an  arbitrary  choice,  much  less  a  rejection  or 
reprobation  of  those  who,  having  been  called,  yet  are 
not  chosen.  In  the  parable  in  connection  with  which 
the  text  was  spoken  we  read  that  the  king  invited  all, 
made  provision  for  all,  had  a  place  and  a  welcome  for 
all.  And  so  the  feast  spread  in  the  gospel  of  Christ  is 
prepared  for  all,  is  sufficient  for  all,  is  freely  offered  to 
all.  "  God  willeth  not  that  any  should  perish,  but  that 
all  should  come  to  repentance."  "The  Spirit  and  the 
Bride  say  Come,  .  .  .  and  whosoever  will  let  him  take 
the  water  of  life  freely." 

To  doubt  that  we  are  all  called  to  the  gospel  feast, 
and  would  all  be  welcome  if  we  came,  would  be  to  im- 
pute insincerity  to  God,  would  be  a  blasphemous  sug- 
gestion that,  while  He  appears  to  open  the  gate  to  us 
all,  He  in  fact  does  not  mean  to  admit  us  if  we  come! 

Who,  then,  are  the  "chosen"?  To  answer  in  the 
language  of  the  parable,  they  are  those  who  choose  to 
come,  and  who  in  coming  submit  to  the  regulations  of 
the  feast.     Thus  the  choice  depended  on  the  answer 


I40         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

given  to  the  calling.  If  the  invited  guests  rejected  the 
invitation,  or  proved  unwilling  to  submit  themselves 
to  the  regulations  of  the  king's  banquet,  then  they 
were  not  "chosen."  The  lamentation  of  Jesus  over 
Jerusalem  tells  the  whole  story :  "  I  would — ye  would 
not."  In  the  perverse  and  guilty  and  inexcusable 
rebellion  of  the  human  will  against  the  purposes  of 
Infinite  Love,  lies  the  whole  and  the  all-sufficient  ex- 
planation of  the  fact  that,  whereas  many  are  called,  few 
are  chosen! 

The  men  of  Nazareth  furnish  another  illustration. 
They  met  Him  with  such  obstinate  and  guilty  unbelief 
that  "  He  could  there  do  no  mighty  work,  save  that  He 
laid  His  hands  on  a  few  sick  folk  and  healed  them." 
The  same  scene  is  re-enacted  to-day  in  all  our  cities. 
The  many  reject  Him.  He  cannot  put  forth  His  mighty 
power  to  save  because  of  the  hardness  of  their  hearts. 
He  lays  His  gracious  healing  hand  on  but  a  few — and 
they,  perhaps,  the  poor  and  the  needy.  Meanwhile 
see  the  tears  welling  up  from  the  fountain  of  His  mighty 
heart  of  love  and  coursing  down  His  cheeks  as  He  ex- 
claims, in  a  voice  breaking  with  sorrow,  "  Ye  will  not 
come  unto  Me  that  ye  may  have  life !  " 

II.  Let  us  next  inquire,  What  is  the  test  by  which 
the  chosen  may  be  recognized,  or  at  least  may  recog- 
nize themselves? 

There  is  a  searching  and  sufficient  test  suggested  by 
the  parable:  "When  the  king  came  in  to  see  the  guests 
he  saw  there  a  man  which  had  not  on  a  wedding  gar- 
ment, and  he  said  to  him:  Friend,  how  earnest  thou  in 
hither,  not  having  on  a  wedding  garment?  And  he 
was  speechless.  Then  said  the  king  to  his  servants,  Bind 
him  hand  and  foot,  and  take  him  away  and  cast  him 


The  Christian  Calling  and  Election        141 

into  outer  darkness;  there  shall  be  weeping  and  gnash- 
ing of  teeth.     For  many  are  called,  but  few  chosen." 

In  this  vivid  parabolic  picture  our  Lord  sets  forth 
the  judicial  separation  that  wiU  take  place  in  the  great 
day  between  the  real  and  the  unreal  disciples  of  Christ. 
It  is  not  enough  to  accept  the  invitation  to  the  gospel 
feast.  It  is  not  enough  to  take  one's  place  among  the 
guests  at  His  holy  table.  We  must  come  in  fitting 
garb.  We  must  have  on  the  wedding  garment.  Ah, 
my  brethren,  it  is  a  solemn  thought  that  not  all  the 
busy  workers  in  the  kingdom  of  God  will  be  at  last 
numbered  among  the  chosen;  not  all  who  preach  the 
gospel  wall  be  found  partakers  of  the  benefits  of  the 
gospel;  not  all  who  do  mighty  works  in  the  name  of 
Christ  will  be  recognized  among  His  own  in  the  day 
when  the  secrets  of  aU  hearts  shall  be  revealed. 

Then  will  be  a  separation  Hke  that  which  the  prophet 
Amos  saw  in  vision:  "The  Lord  said  unto  me,  Amos, 
what  seeest  thou?  And  I  said,  A  plumbline.  Then 
said  the  Lord,  Behold,  I  will  set  a  plumbline  in  the 
midst  of  My  people  Israel. "     (Amos  vii.  8.) 

That  plumbhne  of  righteous  judgment  was  set  in  the 
midst  of  the  ancient  prophets,  and  it  divided  between 
the  false  prophets  and  the  true.  It  was  set  in  the 
midst  of  the  twelve  apostles,  and  it  divided  Judas  the 
traitor  from  his  colleagues.  It  was  set  in  the  midst  of 
the  early  Church,  and  it  divided  between  Ananias  and 
Sapphira  and  the  rest  of  the  Church  in  Jerusalem.  It 
is  set  in  the  midst  of  the  ministers  of  Christ  to-day,  and, 
unseen  of  men,  it  divides  in  God's  sight  between  the 
faithful  shepherds  and  those  who  neither  lead  nor  feed 
the  flock.  It  is  set  in  the  midst  of  yonder  chancel  rail, 
and  it  divides  between  the  communicants  who  kneel 


142         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

there — between  those  who  receive  rightly,  worthily 
and  with  faith,  and  those  who  receive  unworthily, 
neither  repenting  them  of  their  sins  nor  having  a  lively 
faith  in  the  mercy  of  God  through  Christ.  And  it  will 
be  set  in  the  midst  of  us  all  at  the  great  day  of  account 
dividing  the  sheep  from  the  goats  before  the  throne  of 
the  glory  of  the  Son  of  Man. 

But  what  will  be  the  standard  of  judgment?  What 
is  the  test  by  which  the  "chosen  ones"  shall  be  distin- 
guished? What  is  this  wedding  garment  which  the 
King  requires  every  guest  to  be  clothed  withal? 

My  brethren,  it  is  a  heart  loyal  to  Christ,  a  will  which 
strives  to  submit  itself  to  God's  will,  a  life  whose  centre 
is  no  longer  self  and  its  indulgence,  self  and  its  lusts, 
but  God  and  the  good  of  men. 

These  are  the  notes  of  God's  chosen  ones — there  is 
no  substitute  for  this:  "Without  holiness  no  man  shall 
see  the  Lord."  "If  any  man  have  not  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  he  is  none  of  His."  "  If  any  man  be  in  Christ, 
he  is  a  new  creature :  old  things  are  passed  away." 

But  is  not  this  proceeding  of  the  king  in  the  parable 
harsh  and  even  unjust,  to  send  out  into  the  slums  and 
bid  a  poor  beggar  to  his  feast  and  then  cast  him  out  be- 
cause he  has  not  a  wedding  garment?  No,  because  the 
Oriental  monarchs  provided  garments  for  their  guests — 
and  the  man  was  condemned  because  he  did  not  accept 
the  wedding  garment  that  the  king  provided,  but  pre- 
ferred to  come  in  his  own.  And  oh!  my  brothers,  if 
any  of  us  are  condemned  in  like  manner  it  will  be  be- 
cause we  did  not  accept  the  grace  that  was  offered  us — 
God's  great  provision  of  love  and  mercy  in  the  gospel, 
which  purifies  the  heart  and  makes  us  new  creatures  in 
Christ  Jesus.     Let  us  note  it  well,  if  any  man  of  us  all 


The  Christian  Calling  and  Election        143 

to-day  have  not  the  wedding  garment  of  faith,  hope, 
and  charity,  have  not  the  roots  of  holiness  within  him, 
it  is  his  own  fault.  He  has  rejected  the  King's  gift;  he 
has  refused  to  open  his  heart  to  the  grace  of  Christ, 
which  purifies  the  affections  and  renews  the  will  and 
transforms  the  life.  We  preach  a  gospel  of  free  grace; 
and  it  is  a  grace  which,  if  accepted,  clothes  the  sinner 
in  the  garment  of  a  Christian  life. 

Ah,  my  friends,  the  great  day  is  coming  when  the 
King  will  come  in  to  see  the  guests.  He  will  read  them 
through  and  through.  He  will  see  the  hidden  man  of 
the  heart.  And  woe  to  the  man  who  shall  then  be 
found  clothed  in  the  garment  of  pride  and  self-right- 
eousness, or  wearing  the  raiment  of  self-pleasing  and 
self-indulgence. 

III.  A  third  question  remains — one  of  the  greatest 
practical  importance.  What  is  the  method  by  which 
we  may  enter  into  the  happy  number  of  the  "  chosen  "  ? 
How  shall  we  make  sure  that  we  are  "chosen"  as  well 
as  "called"? 

I  answer,  my  brethren,  in  the  words  of  Jesus  Christ 
Himself:  "Strive  to  enter  in  by  the  narrow  gate."  Real- 
ize the  difficulty  of  entering  in.  Recognize  the  neces- 
sity of  earnest  effort.  The  rescue  of  a  human  soul 
from  the  corruption  of  sin  and  from  the  bondage  of 
evil,  and  the  restoration  of  the  pristine  image  of  God, 
so  that  it  shall  at  last  be  meet  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  is  a  very  serious  and  a  very  difficult  under- 
taking and  demands  strenuous  exertion.  The  word 
used  by  our  Lord  and  translated  "strive  "  suggests  the 
strenuous  contests  of  the  Grecian  games;  as  if  He 
had  said,  "Strive,  as  the  wrestler  strives  with  his 
antagonist  in  the  arena,   as  the  runner  in  the  race.'! 


144        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

St.  Paul  uses  the  same  illustration  in  the  epistle  for  the 
day:  "Know  ye  not,"  he  exclaims,  "that  they  which 
run  in  a  race  run  all,  but  one  receiveth  the  prize?  So 
run  that  ye  may  obtain."  "They  do  it,"  he  adds, 
"to  obtain  a  corruptible  crown;  but  we  an  incorrupt- 
ible." He  himself,  illustrious  as  were  his  services  in 
the  cause  of  Christ,  high  as  was  his  office,  yet  deeply  felt 
the  absolute  necessity  for  this  strenuous  exertion  to 
make  his  caUing  and  election  sure.  "I  therefore  so 
run,  not  as  uncertainly;  so  fight  I,  not  as  one  that 
beateth  the  air :  but  I  keep  under  my  body  and  bring 
it  into  subjection;  lest  that  by  any  means,  when  I  have 
preached  to  others,  I  myself  should  be  a  castaway." 

Ah,  yes,  my  dear  friends,  there  is  no  royal  road  to  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  For  all  ahke,  apostle  and  dis- 
ciple, priest  and  people,  it  is  the  same  path  of  faith  and 
effort,  of  prayer  and  watchfulness,  of  self-denial  and 
self-conquest.  O  that  every  professing  Christian  to 
whom  I  speak  to-day  might  realize  that  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian indeed  is  a  very  serious  undertaking,  and  must  be 
made  the  supreme  aim  and  issue  of  life  if  it  is  to  be 
achieved !  Depend  upon  it,  if  your  religion  is  a  second- 
ary matter — a  side  issue  as  it  were,  a  mere  unimpor- 
tant annex  to  the  building  of  hfe — then  it  is  an  unreal 
religion,  a  mere  shell  and  husk  without  vitality;  and 
in  the  time  of  trial,  in  the  hour  of  strong  temptation, 
in  the  day  of  judgment,  it  will  shrivel  like  a  dry  leaf  in 
the  flame! 

The  loving  voice  of  the  Church  is  summoning  us  at 
this  season  to  the  observance  of  the  season  of  Lent — 
among  other  reasons  for  this  one,  that  Christian  people 
may  avail  themselves  of  the  opportunity  of  such  a  holy 
time  of  special  devotion,  to  re-examine  the  title-deeds 


The  Christian  Calling  and  Election        145 

of  their  religion  and  assure  themselves  that  they  are 
"clear,"  without  blot  or  cloud. 

Too  many  are  living  in  thoughtless  security,  as  if  all 
were  well,  when,  in  fact,  there  is  a  fatal  paralysis  at 
the  heart  of  their  Christian  life.  Would  that  this  sum- 
mons might  be  heard  and  obeyed  by  every  man  and 
woman  whose  name  stands  on  the  register  of  this  parish 
as  a  communicant!  Again  Jesus  looks  around  upon 
His  disciples  and  says  in  sorrow,  "Verily,  verily  I  say 
unto  you,  that  one  of  you  shall  betray  Me ! "  Let  every 
one  of  us  answer  in  the  deepest  humility,  and  with  the 
most  fervent  prayer  for  light  and  help,  "Lord,  is  it  I?  " 
Distrust  of  ourselves  is  the  highest  wisdom.  Remem- 
ber the  Church  of  Laodicea!  She  was  entirely  at  her 
ease.  She  had  no  anxiety  about  her  spiritual  state. 
She  said  to  herself,  "I  am  rich,  and  increased  with 
goods,  and  have  need  of  nothing."  But  Jesus  Christ 
said  to  her,  "Thou  art  wretched,  and  miserable,  and 
poor,  and  blind,  and  naked."  Ah!  let  us  not  be  guilty 
of  the  bhndness  and  folly  of  the  Church  of  Laodicea; 
but  let  us,  each  one,  make  it  the  first  business  of  this 
approaching  Lenten  season  to  search  and  try  our  ways 
— nay,  to  ask  God  to  search  us  and  try  our  hearts,  and 
see  if  there  be  any  wicked  way  in  us. 

You  have  entered  on  the  Christian  race.  It  is  well; 
but  remember  only  he  who  lays  aside  every  weight  and 
the  sin  that  doth  so  easily  beset  him  will  at  last  win 
the  prize.  You  have  taken  upon  you  the.:^service  of 
Christ  as  a  soldier  of  the  Cross.  It  is  well;  but  remem- 
ber only  those  who  fight  manfully  and  are  faithful  unto 
death  will  be  crowned  as  victors.  You  have  been 
grafted  into  Christ  as  a  branch  into  the  vine,  by  bap- 
tism, and  confirmation,  and  the  holy  sacrament  of  His 


146        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

Body  and  Blood.  It  is  well;  but,  again  I  say,  remem- 
ber that  the  unfruitful  branches  will  be  cut  off  and  cast 
into  the  fire. 

"  Whether  there  many  be  or  few, 
Elect  the  heavenly  goal  to  win, 
Truly  I  know  not : — this  I  know, 
That  none  who  march  with  footsteps  slow, 
That  none  who  fight  with  hearts  untrue, 
That  none  who  serve  with  service  cold, 
Th'  Eternal  City  shall  behold, 

Or  enter  in. 

"  Whether  there  many  be  that  thrive 
In  their  vast  suit  for  that  vast  love, 
Truly  I  know  not: — this  I  know, 
That  but  to  seek  is  not  to  strive  : 
That  love  lives  not  in  empty  show. 
That  thankless  praises,  heartless  prayers. 
Can  claim  no  bond  for  will  of  theirs 

His  face  to  see." 


HEREDITY,    ENVIRONMENT,    AND    FREE 
AGENCY 

FOR  SEXAGESIMA   SUNDAY 

"  Behold,  a  sower  went  forth  to  sow." — St.  Matt.  xiii.  3. 

This  familiar  parable  is  spoken  in  our  ears  by  the 
Church  every  year  on  this  second  Sunday  before  Lent, 
with  the  obvious  intent  to  warn  us  of  the  danger  of 
receiving  the  grace  of  God  in  vain,  and  to  lead  us,  each 
one,  to  ask  ourselves  whether  the  divine  seed,  wliich  is 
the  Word  of  God,  is  likely  to  bring  forth  fruit  in  our 
hearts.  Christ's  classification  of  human  hearts  is  set 
before  us,  and  it  is  suggested  to  us  that  we  study  it  care- 
fully with  a  view  to  determine  to  which  class  we  belong — 
whether  to  the  indifferent,  whose  hearts  are  callous  and 
unimpressible ;  or  to  the  frivolous,  whose  hearts  are  shal- 
low and  destitute  of  earnestness;  or  to  the  worldly,  whose 
hearts  are  filled  with  the  cares  or  pleasures  of  this  life ; 
or  to  the  single-minded,  whose  hearts  are  simple  and 
honest,  firmly  set  upon  serving  God  rather  than  Mam- 
mon, or  self,  or  the  world. 

This  parable  is  a  mirror  with  four  surfaces,  and  the 
Church  holds  it  up  to  her  children  that  they  may  look 
attentively  at  these  four  glasses  in  succession,  confident 
that  in  one  or  other  of  the  four  every  man  will  see  his 
own  character  reflected. 

Now  it  is  an  impressive  circumstance  in  the  construc- 

147 


148        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

tion  of  this  parable  that  it  subordinates  all  tests  of  char- 
acter to  this  one,  viz.,  How  does  the  man  receive  the  Word 
of  God  f  which  is  only  another  way  of  asking,  Hoiv  does 
he  receive  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  in  the  highest  sense  the 
Word  of  God  f  This  is  the  principle  of  classification  recog- 
nized as  fundamental  by  the  great  Searcher  of  Hearts. 
This  is  the  crucial  test  which  settles  the  question  what 
manner  of  men  we  are.  In  other  words,  the  Word  of 
God  is  the  means  of  revealing  human  hearts.  "  By  its 
rays  all  human  hearts  are  disclosed,  and  according  to  the 
manner  in  which  they  reveal  themselves,  in  this  or  that 
tendency,  the  principle  of  their  whole  existence  is  dis- 
tinguished. In  short,  nothing  determines  the  true 
worth  of  a  man  more  clearly  than  the  way  and  manner 
in  which  he  acts  with  regard  to  the  Divine  Word."  * 
Momentous  thought!  while  lue  classify  each  other  by 
standards  of  wealth,  or  of  talent,  or  of  social  position,  or 
of  so-called  respectability,  heaven  is  dividing  us  into 
different  classes  upon  a  totally  different  principle — our 
attitude  towards,  our  reception  of,  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Word  of  God.  The  world,  to  determine  the  attitude  it 
will  assume  toward  a  man,  asks,  What  is  he  worth? 
What  is  his  business?  How  is  he  rated  on  the  street,  or 
on  the  exchange,  or  at  the  stock  board,  or  in  the  political 
arena?  Or,  What  kind  of  a  house  does  he  live  in? 
What  entertainments  does  he  give?  How  does  he  dress? 
What  are  his  manners?  Is  he  a  man  of  social  qualities? 
Jesus  Christ  ignores  all  such  considerations  and  shows 
us  that  the  one  supreme  and  important  question,  which 
determines  a  man's  true  worth,  is,  What  kind  of  a  heart 
has  he?  And  this  again  is  determined  by  his  attitude 
towards  the  Word  of  God,  Ms  reception  of  the  revelation 
*  Rothe. 


Heredity,  Environment,  and  Free  Agency  149 

of  God  in  Christ  Himself.  It  is  by  this  test  and  by  this 
standard  that  you,  my  brethren,  are  divided  and  classi- 
fied in  the  sight  of  God  and  the  holy  angels,  even  now 
while  my  words  are  in  your  ears.  Nor  is  this  arbitrary. 
He  is  the  magnet,  and  the  good  in  a  man  7nust  respond 
to  Him  when  He  is  truly  presented.  "  He  that  is  of  the 
truth  heareth  My  voice." 

Such  a  parable  as  this,  enwrapping  truths  so  vital, 
must  needs  often  be  the  subject  of  pulpit  exposition.  I 
propose,  however,  this  morning  to  leave  the  beaten  path 
of  exposition.  I  shall  ask  you  to  look  at  the  parable, 
not  directly,  but,  as  it  were,  obliquely.  Instead  of  ex- 
pounding the  parable  itself  I  shall  endeavor  to  fix  your 
attention  upon  the  significance  of  a  single  feature  of  the 
representation.  Instead  of  depicting  these  four  classes 
of  human  hearts,  I  shall  seek  to  exhibit  the  principle  that 
the  actual  state  of  any  man's  heart  is,  to  a  large  extent,  the 
result  of  the  self-imposed  conditions  of  his  life,  and  that 
he  is  therefore  directly  responsible  for  it.  The  divine 
Sower  goes  forth  to  sow  His  heavenly  seed.  And  as  He 
sows  some  fall  upon  soil  which  is  hard,  unbroken  by  the 
plough,  unprepared  for  the  sowing.  Some  fall  upon 
rocky  spots  where  there  is  no  deepness  of  earth,  and  hence 
no  sustenance  for  the  grain.  Some  fall  among  thorns, 
which,  springing  up  with  the  seed,  choke  it  and  it  be- 
comes unfruitful.  Such  are  three  of  the  four  classes  of 
soil  mentioned,  each  the  image  of  a  class  of  hearts  upon 
which  the  Word  of  God  is  cast  by  the  great  Sower. 

Now  the  point  I  wish  to  emphasize  is  this,  that  the  soil 
need  not  have  been  thus  unfit  to  receive  the  seed.  The 
hard-trodden  path  across  the  field  might  have  been 
ploughed  up  and  prepared  for  sowing;  the  rocky  places 
might  have  been  mended  and  the   soil  deepened;  the 


150         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

thorny  places  might  have  been  rid  of  those  roots  of 
weeds  and  brambles  had  proper  effort  been  used.  In 
other  words,  men  are  accountable  for  the  state  of  their  hearts 
when  the  Word  of  God  presents  itself  for  their  acceptance. 
This  indifference  with  which  you  now  receive  the  truth 
might  be  broken  up  if  you  would  use  the  means  God  offers 
you  for  awakening  your  slumbering  soul  to  a  sense  of  its 
sin  and  its  need.  This  shallowness  of  religious  principle, 
which  makes  so  many  of  you,  professing  Christians,  un- 
fruitful, and  so  stamps  your  Christianity  as  unreal  and 
vain,  results  from  the  superficial  way  in  which  you  con- 
duct your  spiritual  exercises.  If  you  would  go  down  be- 
low the  surface  by  honest  self-scrutiny  and  humiliation 
before  God,  daily,  the  Word  would  strike  deep  into  your 
hearts  and  bring  forth  fruit.  Again,  these  thorns  of 
worldly  cares  and  pleasures  need  not  be  permitted  to 
grow  up  in  your  lives  side  by  side  with  the  seed  of  the 
Divine  Life,  absorbing  the  energies  and  life  of  your  souls. 
It  is  in  your  power  by  the  help  of  God  to  root  them  out 
and  leave  your  religious  life  room  to  grow  and  thrive. 

In  asserting  this  I  only  assert  the  principle  of  moral 
liberty,  which  is  fundamental  to  a  true  philosophy  of 
man.  It  is  sometimes  affirmed  that  man  is  the  creature 
of  circumstances,  and  it  is  undeniable  that  the  condi- 
tions of  our  lives  go  a  great  way  in  determining  character 
and  conduct.  But  the  thing  to  be  observed  is  that  the 
circumstances  and  conditions  of  life,  taken  in  their 
broadest  aspect,  are  to  a  large  degree  under  our  own 
control.  Man  is  not  an  automaton.  He  is  not  a  ma- 
chine driven  by  forces  purely  external  to  himself.  You 
cannot  calculate  what  course  he  will  take  under  given 
circumstances  and  given  influences,  as  you  can  deter- 
mine the  flight  of  an  arrow  shot  from  a  bow,  or  the  course 


Heredity,  Environment,  and  Free  Agency  151 

of  a  cannon-ball  propelled  by  so  many  pounds  of  pow- 
der from  a  gun  of  a  certain  bore  and  at  a  certain  angle 
of  elevation.  The  will  power,  the  faculty  of  choice 
must  be  reckoned  with  here,  and  it  is  an  unknown  factor 
in  the  problem.  By  it  man  takes  his  place  as  a  king 
upon  the  earth,  subduing  it,  moulding  its  development. 
Without  this,  civilization  would  be  impossible,  and  the 
progress  of  the  human  race  a  blank  page  in  history. 

Yet  I  am  far  from  intending  to  deny  the  moulding 
influence  of  the  external  conditions  of  life  upon  charac- 
ter. On  the  contrary,  I  desire  to  emphasize  it  and  to 
make  it  the  basis  of  my  appeal  to  your  consciences  to- 
day. 

Let  us  consider  the  matter  a  little  more  closely. 

Two  great  principles  or  laws  reveal  themselves  to  us 
in  the  study  of  nature  and  of  man:  the  law  of  heredity 
and  the  law  of  environment.  Everything  which  has  life 
— a  plant,  for  instance,  or  a  tree — is  determined  in  its 
development  by  two  sets  of  conditions,  the  conditions 
which  the  law  of  the  propagation  of  its  species  imposes 
and  the  conditions  which  its  enviromnent  of  climate  and 
air  and  soil  imposes.  A  palm-tree  is  what  it  is  partly 
because  of  the  nature  of  the  germ  from  which  it  was 
developed,  partly  because  of  the  character  of  the  soil  and 
the  climate  in  which  it  grows.  An  animal,  in  like  man- 
ner, is  what  it  is,  as  the  result  of  these  two  sets  of  con- 
ditions: its  parentage  and  its  external  circumstances. 
And  man  also  is  undoubtedly,  in  great  measure,  a  re- 
sultant of  these  two  principles  of  heredity  and  environ- 
ment. We  receive  from  our  parents  certain  predisposi- 
tions and  peculiarities  of  body  and  mind,  and  then  we 
are  placed  in  certain  circumstances  of  influence,  of  asso- 
ciation, of  education,  of  example;  and  character  is  in 


152         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

large  measure  determined  by  these  two  factors.  Man  is 
not  independent  of  the  atmosphere  in  which  he  lives  any 
more  than  the  plant  or  the  tree  or  the  animal.  But 
when  we  say  this  we  must  remember  that  man  is  a  spir- 
itual being  as  well  as  an  animal  and  intellectual  being, 
and  that  he  is  surrounded  and  penetrated  by  a  spiritual 
atmosphere  as  well  as  by  a  physical  one.  In  God  we  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being.  His  spirit  encircles  us 
with  His  divine  influence.  God  hath  not  left  Himself 
without  witness  in  any  man's  heart.  And  more  than 
this.  It  must  also  be  observed  that  man,  more  than 
any  other  creature,  has  the  faculty  of  changing  the  con- 
ditions in  which  he  lives,  and  even  of  keeping  himself 
more  or  less  free  from  the  influences  by  which  he  is 
surrounded.  By  his  regal  gift  of  free  will  he  may  open 
his  nature  to  one  set  of  these  surrounding  influences  and 
close  it  to  another,  in  greater  or  less  degree. 

Now,  civilization  grows  out  of  the  application  of  this 
principle  of  freedom  of  choice  and  self-determination  to 
the  principle  of  environment  and  its  influence.  Learning 
the  influence  of  certain  conditions  of  air  and  water  and 
drainage  and  climate,  man  avoids  those  which  are  in- 
jurious and  so  escapes  disease  and  develops  a  vigorous 
constitution.  Perceiving  the  value  of  early  mental 
training,  parents  give  careful  attention  to  the  education 
of  their  children,  and  see  that  they  are  surrounded  by 
certain  conditions  favorable  to  the  development  of  the 
intellect,  and  thus  are  produced  men  and  women  of 
culture  and  intelligence.  If  there  is  anything  which  is 
specially  characteristic  of  this  age  it  is  the  importance 
which  is  attached  to  the  conditions  of  early  education. 
The  force  of  mental  habit  is  perceived  in  all  its  immense 
significance.     And  men  strive,  for  themselves  and  for 


Heredity,  Environment,  and  Free  Agency  153 

their  children,  to  improve  their  condition,  to  harness 
this  powerful  force,  habit,  to  the  chariot  of  life,  believing 
that  in  accomplishing  tliis  they  shall  surely  advance  them- 
selves. All  this  is  exemplified  with  great  force  by  the 
social  science  of  our  day.  Reformers  in  this  department 
rightly  lay  great  stress  upon  the  beneficial  influence  of 
better  homes  for  the  masses,  better  ventilation,  better 
plumbing,  better  drainage,  better  surroundings.  Fresh 
air  and  green  grass,  public  libraries  and  public  schools, 
places  of  amusement  and  recreation,  art-galleries,  pubhc 
holidays — all  are  urged  as  instruments  of  moral  and 
social  progress.  In  other  words,  the  science  and  the 
intelligence  of  the  age  is  urging  upon  mankind  to  improve 
the  soil  in  which  the  seed  of  their  life  is  planted.  Break 
up  the  fallow  ground,  it  cries,  sow  not  among  thorns. 
Plough  deep — get  down  to  a  good  subsoil;  harrow  your 
fields  well,  and  weed  out  carefully  the  brambles  which 
choke  the  growth  of  the  mind  and  the  social  \'irtues. 
And  to  these  ends  the  Zeitgeist  lays  great  stress  upon  the 
moulding  power  of  external  conditions  and  inculcates 
the  necessity  of  improving  these  in  every  feasible  way, 
especially  by  the  force  of  regular  systematic  training. 
All  this  in  relation  to  the  affairs  of  this  life.  But,  as  a 
recent  writer  has  pertinently  remarked,  when  we  pass 
into  the  field  of  religion,  then  the  spirit  of  the  time  calls 
a  halt  and  proclaims  a  principle  the  very  reverse  of  this. 
It  looks  upon  religion  as  something  independent  of 
external  conditions — "a  spiritual  matter;  it  is  all 
within;  it  is  something  not  to  be  spoken  of;  a  spirit 
of  reverence  is  all  that  is  needed — the  form  may  go;  be 
humble,  but  you  need  not  pray;  fear  God,  but  you  need 
not  trouble  yourself  about  church  or  worship;    keep 


154        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

children  pure,  but  don't  burden  their  minds  with  the 
forms  of  rehgion." 

Now  such  a  principle  of  conduct  is  in  direct  contra- 
diction to  the  lessons  which  the  philosophy  and  the 
science  of  the  age  have  been  giving  us.  Consistency 
requires  that  we  should  apply  to  moral  and  religious 
truth  the  same  great  principles  which  w^e  find  govern- 
ing in  social  and  physical  life.  If  there  is  any  region 
in  which  man's  free  agency  and  responsibility  should 
be  chiefly  emphasized,  it  is  surely  in  the  sphere  of 
religion  and  of  morals.  Here,  too,  he  must  recognize 
the  force  of  external  conditions  and  his  duty  to  mould 
and  change  those  conditions  so  as  to  make  them  favora- 
ble to  the  development  of  the  highest  type  of  religious 
and  moral  character.  Here,  too,  he  should  hear  a  voice 
saying.  Improve  the  soil  on  which  your  religious  life  is 
planted.  "Pick  out  the  stones;  weed  out  the  thorns. 
Do  all  in  your  power  to  make  it  a  good  soil  favorable  to 
the  growth  of  the  best  type  of  character.  Seize  and 
utilize  the  masterful  and  moulding  force  of  habit  and 
yoke  it  to  your  plough  that  you  may  break  up  your 
fallow  ground  and  prepare  your  soil  to  receive  the  seed 
which  is  the  Word  of  God." 

It  is,  my  brethren,  an  unreasonable  and  groundless 
notion  that  religion  is  independent  of  external  forms — 
that  they  are  of  no  service  to  it.  True,  it  is  spiritual 
in  its  nature,  but  it  is  not  a  disembodied  spirit.  It  has 
an  appropriate  external  dress — a  body,  a  tabernacle — 
symbols  by  which  it  expresses  itself  to  the  eye  and  to  the 
ear,  natural,  appropriate,  and  helpful  to  man,  who  is 
himself  a  being  combining  the  visible  with  the  invisible, 
the  corporeal  with  the  spiritual.  Hence  it  is  reasonable 
to  infer  that  the  outward  forms  of  rehgion,  the  drill  of 


Heredity,  Environment,  and  i^'ree  Agency  155 

religious  observance,  the  habits  which  the  pious  experi- 
ence of  ages  has  consecrated,  are  not  to  be  despised  or 
neglected,  but  to  be  held  an  integral  part  of  religion. 
In  the  words  of  the  writer  just  quoted,  "  One  logically 
implies  the  other,  but  it  does  not  necessarily  secure  it. 
One  ma}^  run  the  risk  of  formalism,  but  the  other  runs  the 
risk  of  extinction.  It  is  a  matter  of  regret  that  to  stand 
within  or  "without  the  Church  is  getting  to  be  regarded 
with  indifference.  And  if  within,  the  recurring  duties  of 
the  relation  are  regarded  as  hardly  obligatory  or  even 
important.  Now,  this  framework  of  Christian  services 
is  indispensable  to  Christian  character  and  the  necessary 
condition  of  its  permanence  and  steadiness.  The  out- 
ward habit  tends  to  create  an  inward  habit;  the  external 
method  favors  the  internal  disposition  and  becomes  its 
measure,  as  in  a  plant  the  soil  and  light  are  the  conditions 
and  the  measure  of  the  growth  of  the  vital  principle 
within  it."  * 

This  conclusion  stands  firm  upon  grounds  of  reason. 
It  is  the  deduction  of  a  wise  philosophy.  It  is  in  har- 
mony with  the  principles  of  the  latest  science.  But, 
be  it  remembered,  it  has  a  yet  firmer  foundation  in  the 
revelation  of  God  in  the  words  of  Jesus  Christ.  He 
Who  knew  what  was  in  man  and  what  his  nature  needed, 
has  put  the  seal  of  His  own  absolute  and  unerring  wisdom 
upon  the  principle  contended  for  by  giving  us  a  religion 
which  has  a  body  as  well  as  a  soul.  The  ordinances  and 
sacraments  of  the  Church  are  of  His  appointment.  The 
Church  itself  is  a  divine  institute.  St.  Paul  calls  it 
"the  pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth,"  Defined  in  the 
scientific  nomenclature  of  the  day,  it  is  a  divinely  or- 

*  Rev.  Dr.  Murger. 


156         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

dained  environment  for  the  protection  and  development 
of  the  spiritual  life. 

I  come  back,  therefore,  to  the  position  which  I  stated 
at  the  outset  of  this  discourse,  that  the  actual  state  of 
any  man's  heart  is  to  a  large  extent  the  result  of  the 
self-imposed  conditions  of  his  Hfe,  and  that  he  is  there- 
fore directly  responsible  for  it;  and  I  urge  you,  friends 
and  brethren,  to  make  a  personal  application  of  this 
principle. 

You  are  a  professing  Christian.  You  have  received 
the  good  seed  which  is  the  Word  of  God.  But  will  the 
seed  grow?  Will  there  be  a  harvest?  That  depends 
on  the  state  of  the  soil  and  the  culture  you  bestow  upon 
it.  Remember  the  potent  influence  of  environment. 
Take  heed  of  the  conditions  of  your  life.  See  that  you 
make  those  conditions  as  far  as  in  you  lies  favorable  to 
the  growth  of  the  spiritual  life  within  you.  Seek  a  pure 
atmosphere.  Avoid  things  which  will  contaminate 
your  soul.  DiUgently  cultivate  the  soil  of  your  life  that 
this  heavenly  seed  planted  therein  may  not  grow  sickly 
and  wither  and  die.  Drive  the  ploughshare  of  self- 
examination  and  repentance  deep  down  into  the  soil. 
Diligently  pluck  out  the  weeds  and  thorns  which  choke 
the  life  of  the  heavenly  seed.  Beware  that  the  cares 
and  pleasures  of  this  world  do  not  absorb  your  affections 
and  energies  and  leave  the  spiritual  life  to  starve. 


BLIND    BARTIM^US 


FOR  QUINQUAGESIMA   SUNDAY 


"And  it  came  to  pass,  that  as  He  was  come  nigh  unto  Jericho,  a 
certain  blind  man  sat  by  the  wayside  begging;  and  hearing  the 
multitude  pass  by  he  asked  what  it  meant.  And  they  told  him 
that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  passeth  by.  And  he  cried,  saying: 
'Jesus,  Thou  Son  of  David,  have  mercy  on  me!'" 

St.  Luke  xviii.  35-38. 

Those  three  short  years,  the  record  of  which,  in  the 
opinion  of  a  famous  historian  of  our  time  (himself  not 
a  behever),  has  "done  more  to  regenerate  and  soften 
mankind  than  all  the  disquisitions  of  philosophers  and 
all  the  exhortations  of  moralists" — those  three  won- 
drous years  were  drawing  to  a  close.  Jesus  Christ  was 
going  up  to  Jerusalem  to  die,  as  He  plainly  told  His 
disciples.  He  had  come  from  Persea;  He  must  needs 
pass  through  Jericho.  That  famous  city  was  situated 
in  a  plain  of  unsurpassed  fertility  and  beauty.  Josephus 
calls  it  a  "little  paradise."  It  was  in  the  spring  of  the 
year,  when  the  face  of  nature  under  that  tropical  sky 
wore  its  freshest  hue  and  breathed  its  most  dehcious 
perfume.  "All  around  wave  groves  of  feathery  palms 
rising  in  stately  beauty;  stretch  gardens  of  roses  and 
.  .  .  sweet-scented  balsam  plantations,  .  .  .  whose  per- 
fume is  carried  almost  out  to  sea,  and  which  may 
have  given  to  the  city  its  name — Jericho,  'the  per- 

157 


158         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

fumed.'  It  is  the  Eden  of  Palestine,  the  very  fairy- 
land of  the  Old  World."  * 

But  the  trail  of  the  serpent  was  upon  that  scene  as 
upon  the  Garden  of  Eden  of  old.  There  was  poverty 
there  amid  all  that  fertility.  There  was  disease  and 
infirmity  amid  all  that  natural  beauty.  Into  even 
that  realm  of  ravishing  loveliness,  where  nature  de- 
lighted every  sense,  the  sirocco  breath  of  human  want 
and  human  calamity  had  penetrated.  A  Mind  beggar 
sits  by  the  wayside  as  Jesus,  attended  by  His  disciples 
and  a  great  multitude,  approaches. 

Pathetic  illustration,  my  brethren,  of  the  universal 
sway  of  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to !  Here  is  beggary 
and  want  in  the  midst  of  nature's  profusion.  Blind- 
ness, absolute  incapacity  to  perceive  the  beauty  of  the 
world,  in  the  very  spot  where  that  beauty  is  most  won- 
drously  displayed. 

You  remember  the  story  as  it  is  told  in  the  gospel  for 
the  day.  The  blind  beggar — his  name  was  Bartimseus — 
hears  an  unwonted  tumult,  the  tramp  of  an  approach- 
ing multitude — perchance  the  joyful  cries  or  shouts  of 
some  of  the  more  enthusiastic  disciples.  Eagerly  he  en- 
quires what  it  meant  and  is  told  that  "Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth passeth  by. "  Ah,  it  is  Jesus,  then,  who  approaches 
with  an  attendant  multitude  of  pilgrims  going  up  to 
Jerusalem  to  keep  the  feast — Jesus,  the  prophet  of 
Galilee,  whose  fame  has  filled  the  land!  Bartimseus 
had  heard  marvellous  stories  of  the  miracles  wrought 
by  His  hands — lepers  cleansed,  lame  men  restored,  the 
deaf  made  to  hear  and  the  dumb  to  speak — yes,  even 
the  dead  raised  to  life.  And  now  this  wondrous  Per- 
sonage is  actually  approaching,  is  passing  by!  In  an 
*  Edersheim.  < 


Blind  Bartimasus  159 

instant  a  mighty  faith  is  born  in  his  soul.  This  Man 
of  Nazareth  is  the  Son  of  David,  the  Messiah  of  proph- 
ecy, of  whose  coming  and  kingdom  he  had  read  with  a 
kindling  heart,  in  the  roll  of  the  prophet  Isaiah,  in  the 
old  days  before  the  sight  of  his  eyes  had  gone  from  him. 
And  with  this  faith  comes  flashing  into  his  soul  a  blessed 
and  radiant  hope  of  the  restoration  of  sight.  No  sooner 
then  does  he  realize  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  close  at 
hand  than  he  straightway  cries  out  in  a  loud  voice: 
"Thou  Son  of  David,  have  mercy  on  me!"  To  the 
multitude  He  was  "Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  but  to  Bar- 
timaeus  He  stood  revealed  that  day  as  the  "Son  of 
David,"  the  Christ  of  God.  The  ancient  prophet  com- 
plained, "Lord,  who  hath  believed  our  report  and  to 
whom  is  the  arm  of  the  Lord  revealed?"  But  on  that 
bright  spring  day  at  Jericho  there  was  one  who  believed; 
one  who  had  eyes  to  see  in  the  Servant  of  the  Lord, 
"despised  and  rejected  of  men,"  the  Messiah  of  proph- 
ecy— and  that  one  was  the  blind  man,  the  blind  beggar 
who  sat  begging  by  the  roadside ! 

He  was  told  to  hold  his  peace.  Who  was  he  that  he 
should  disturb  the  almost  triumphal  progress  of  the 
Galilsean  Prophet?  He  was  but  a  poor  beggar — let 
him  be  quiet!  But  Bartimseus  was  not  to  be  silenced. 
There  was  too  much  at  stake.  It  might  be  a  breach  of 
decorum;  it  might  be  bad  manners;  it  might  be  held  an 
act  of  presumption  thus  to  interrupt  the  hosannas  of 
the  multitude  and  seek  to  stop  the  progress  of  Jesus  in 
order  to  press  his  own  personal  claim  for  help.  No 
matter.  He  felt  it  was  his  only  hope  of  escape  from 
the  dark  dungeon  of  blindness  into  the  sunlight  again. 
That,  to  him,  was  the  supreme,  the  paramount  con- 
sideration.    And  so  the  more  they  bid  him  hold  his 


i6o        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

peace  the  more  vehemently  he  cries  out,  "Thou  Son  of 
David,  have  mercy  on  me ! " 

His  perseverance  had  its  reward.  Jesus  stood  still 
and  commanded  him  to  be  called.  Then  men  begin  to 
speak  encouragingly:  " Be  of  good  cheer;  rise,  He  calleth 
thee."  He  eagerly  obeys,  and  in  his  impetuous  eager- 
ness to  come  into  the  presence  of  Jesus  casts  aside  his 
outer  garment.  And  now  hear  what  words  Jesus  ad- 
dresses to  him :  "  What  wilt  thou  that  I  should  do  unto 
thee?"  Omnipotence  waits  to  do  the  behest  of  a  men- 
dicant, because  he  had  faith!  There  could  be  but  one 
answer.  "0  give  me  back  my  eyesight!  Open  the 
windows  that  shut  me  in  this  deep  darkness  and  let  in 
the  light  again !  Once  more  let  my  eyes  behold  the  sun 
and  look  upon  the  glory  and  beauty  of  the  world !  Lord, 
that  I  may  recover  my  sight ! "  * 

It  was  a  great  boon  to  ask.  But  faith  is  omnipotent, 
or  rather  it  grasps  omnipotence.  Jesus  said  unto  him : 
"  'Receive  thy  sight;  thy  faith  hath  saved  thee.'  And 
immediately  he  received  his  sight,  and  followed  Him, 
glorifying  God." 

My  brethren,  why  is  this  story  of  the  healing  of  the 
blind  beggar  read  in  our  ears  to-day?  To  prove  to  us 
the  divine  mission  of  Jesus?  No;  His  miracles  do  not 
prove  His  divine  mission  to  us.  It  is  our  faith  in  His 
divine  person  and  mission  that  makes  it  easy  to  be- 
lieve such  miracles  as  these;  they  were  natural  to 
such  an  one  as  He. 

This  narrative  has  a  far  deeper,  diviner  function  in 
our  service  to-day.     It  reflects  and  pictures  the  needs 

*  The  Greek  is  drafSXeipo),  which  signifies  the  recovery  of 
sight. 


Blind  Bartimaeus  i6i 

of  the  human  soul  and  the  power  of  Jesus  Christ  to  meet 
and  satisfy  them.  And  it  shows  how  the  latter  may- 
be applied  to  the  former. 

The  bhndness  of  the  poor  beggar  at  the  gates  of  Jer- 
icho is  an  image  of  that  moral  and  spiritual  blindness 
which  sin  has  produced  in  the  human  soul,  by  reason 
of  which  men  love  darkness  rather  than  light,  mistak- 
ing their  true  interests,  setting  material  pleasures  and 
indulgences  above  the  joy  of  a  good  conscience  and  the 
sense  of  the  divine  approbation,  and  the  love  of  purity 
and  truth  and  righteousness  and  peace.  It  is  bhnd- 
ness that  makes  men  prefer  gold  and  silver  and  precious 
stones,  and  lands  and  stocks  and  houses  and  fine  clothes 
and  fine  furniture,  to  the  accumulation  of  unselfish  and 
charitable  deeds,  and  the  cultivation  of  manliness,  self- 
control,  patience.  It  is  blindness  that  leads  us  to  pre- 
fer to  resent  an  injury  and  to  retaliate  on  those  who 
WTong  us  or  slander  us,  rather  than  to  exercise  that 
divine  charity  which  the  blessed  Master  enjoined  and 
exemplified,  and  which  the  apostle  describes  in  his 
matchless  way:  "Charity  suflfereth  long  and  is  kind; 
charity  envieth  not;  charity  vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not 
puffed  up,  doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly;  seeketh 
not  her  own,  is  not  easily  provoked,  thinketh  no  evil; 
.  .  .  beareth  all  things,  beheveth  all  things,  hopeth  all 
things,  endureth  all  things."  This  bhndness  takes 
many  forms.  I  cannot  stay  to  describe  them.  But, 
in  one  word,  it  puts  self  and  its  indulgence  above  the 
calls  of  brotherly  kindness  and  charity;  it  makes  man, 
not  God,  the  centre  and  spring  of  conduct;  it  has  re- 
gard to  this  short  life  rather  than  to  the  life  eternal;  it 
seeks  to  gain  this  present  world  and  forgets  the  fearful 
risk  of  losing  the  soul  in  the  process.     Above  all,  it  ob- 


1 62         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

scures  and  would  obliterate  in  man  the  consciousness 
that  he  is  a  child  of  God. 

Now,  the  helpfulness  of  this  story  about  blind  Bar- 
timseus  is  that  it  shows  how  entirely  willing  and  how 
absolutely  able  Jesus  Christ  is  to  heal  this  blindness  of 
the  moral  being.  His  deeds  of  physical  healing  ever 
shadow  forth  His  mightier  works  in  the  realm  of  spirit- 
ual need.  O  my  brothers,  if  once  you  become  con- 
scious of  the  wretchedness  of  that  blindness  of  soul 
which  I  have  tried  to  describe,  then  it  will  be  a  gospel 
indeed  to  be  assured  that  there  is  One  still  moving  un- 
seen along  the  highways  of  life  who  is  able  to  heal  this 
bhndness,  able  to  flood  your  darkened  soul  with  light 
and  restore  you  to  your  true  place  as  a  child  of  God  in 
your  Father's  house.  Believe  me,  it  is  true  indeed. 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  among  us  to-day  in  the  fulness  of 
His  power  to  heal  and  to  save.  Ever  since  that  day 
when  He  opened  the  eyes  of  the  poor  beggar  at  the 
gates  of  Jericho,  He  has  been  opening  the  eyes  of  the 
spiritually  blind.  Not  a  page  of  history  all  along  the 
Christian  centuries  but  bears  record  of  miracles  mightier 
far  than  the  healing  of  Bartimaeus.  It  is  to  these  moral 
miracles  we  appeal  in  proof  of  His  divine  mission.  It 
is  by  these  we  would  persuade  you  to  believe  with  all 
your  heart  in  the  omnipotent  power  of  Jesus  Christ  to 
give  to  you  the  opening  of  the  eyes  of  your  soul  and  to 
pour  the  radiance  and  joy  of  a  new  life  into  every 
chamber  of  your  being.  If  He  gave  sight  to  Paul  the 
persecutor,  and  Augustine  the  libertine,  and  John  New- 
ton the  blasphemer,  and  countless  others,  men  of  all 
sorts  and  conditions,  then  He  can  do  the  same  for  you. 
How  the  swift  readiness  of  Jesus  Christ  to  give  light 
and  help  is  seen  in  this  narrative!     Bartimaeus  had 


Blind  Bartimaeus  163 

only  to  ask  for  so  great  a  boon  to  receive  it.  He  was 
only  one  man  in  a  vast  multitude,  and  he  was  a  poor 
beggar,  too;  but  Jesus  of  Nazareth  will  stop  in  His 
triumphal  progress  and  bid  the  multitude  be  still;  in 
short,  everything  shall  wait  upon  the  need  of  the  one 
poor  blind  man.  How  I  wish  I  could  find  words  to 
make  every  man  in  this  congregation  to-day  believe 
and  realize  that  the  same  Christ  is  among  us  now,  with 
the  same  divine  power  of  fight  and  heafing,  and  the 
same  utter  \\dUingness  and  swiftness  to  help!  There  is 
not  a  man  here  to-day  whose  soul-blindness  would  not 
speedily  be  healed  if  he  would  come  with  the  same  faith 
and  the  same  earnestness  of  purpose  to  the  feet  of  the 
unseen  Jesus.  He  is  the  Light  that  lighteth  every  man 
that  Cometh  into  the  world.  He  is  the  Christ  of  God. 
He  is  the  brightness  of  the  Father's  glory.  In  Him 
dweUeth  aU  the  fuhiess  of  the  Godhead  bodily.  He 
stands  among  us  onmipotent  to  save.  And  His  voice 
stiU  echoes  in  our  hearts,  "Come  unto  Me,"  and,  "Him 
that  Cometh  unto  Me  I  will  in  no  wise  cast  out." 

What,  then,  is  the  difficulty?  With  such  power  and 
grace  close  at  hand,  and  more  than  ready  to  bestow 
itself  upon  men,  why  do  we  not  all  find  the  dehverance 
that  came  to  the  blind  beggar  at  the  gates  of  Jericho? 
Brethren,  it  is  because  we  do  not  recognize  the  fact  that 
we  are  blind,  or  we  only  half  recognize  it,  and  so  we 
lack  the  earnestness  and  the  faith  and  the  perseverance 
that  Bartimaeus  showed  when  he  cried  out  in  spite  of  all 
remonstrance :  "  Jesus,  Thou  Son  of  David,  have  mercy 
on  me ! "  To  him  that  day  the  supreme,  the  paramount 
issue  and  interest  was  that  he  might  recover  his  sight. 
When  we  perceive  our  soul-bhndness  as  clearly  as  he 
did  his  physical  bfindness.  and  when  the  restoration  of 


164        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

spiritual  sight  becomes  an  equally  paramount  interest, 
then  will  we  receive  the  same  swift  dehverance  that 
came  to  him. 

How  are  we  to  come  to  such  a"  realization  of  our  spirit- 
ual need?  By  cahn  reflection;  by  honest  self-scrutiny; 
by  resolute  purpose  to  know  what  manner  of  men  we 
are. 

My  brethren,  it  is  not  without  deep  significance  that 
this  narrative  stands  at  the  gate  of  Lent — being  the 
gospel  for  the  day  for  the  Sunday  next  before  Ash 
Wednesday.  It  seems  designed  to  teach  us  that  one 
great  purpose  of  Lent  is  to  awaken  us  to  a  sense  of  our 
soul-bhndness  (whether  it  be  absolute  or  only  partial), 
tiU  we  may  cry  out  for  help  as  the  beggar  did  that  day, 
and  like  him  receive  swift  and  complete  deliverance. 
Deep  in  every  soul,  I  care  not  how  worldly,  how  selfish, 
how  sinful,  is  a  sense  of  its  kinship  with  God  and  of  its 
affinity  for  all  things  high  and  noble  and  pure. 

Little  Helen  Keller  was  brought  up  without  ever 
hearing  the  name  of  God,  without  ever  being  told  one 
thing  about  Him.  They  brought  her  to  Philhps  Brooks 
and  he  talked  to  her  about  God,  the  Father  of  us  all. 
When  he  had  finished  telling  her  about  Him  and  what 
He  was  like,  she  answered  through  her  teacher:  "Why, 
Dr.  Brooks,  I  always  knew  there  was  a  God  before,  but 
I  never  knew  what  His  name  was!"  The  cliild  had 
recognized  the  divine  life  witliin  her,  and  had  felt  God's 
presence  in  her  hfe.  ■ 

So  I  say,  in  every  soul,  no  matter  how  hardened  by 
the  world  or  darkened  by  sin,  there  is  at  least  a  dim 
consciousness  of  God  and  better  tilings,  a  kind  of  remi- 
niscence of  the  lost  fight  and  purity  of  Eden;  and  by 
such  reflection  and  effort  as  Lent  suggests  and  gives 


Blind  Bartimaeus  165 

opportunity  for,  that  sense  of  lost  light  may  be  deep- 
ened till  the  soul  will  cry  out  as  Bartimseus  did :  "  Jesus.. 
Thou  Son  of  David,  have  mercy  upon  me ! " 

God  grant  that  many  may  perceive  that  in  the  ser- 
vices of  this  holy  season,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  passing 
by,  and  may  seize  the  opportunity  of  having  their  eyes 
opened  to  see  the  glory  of  God  and  to  recognize  the 
true  meaning  of  life. 


SELF-DENIAL    AND    THE    CROSS 

FOR   ASH   WEDNESDAY 

"  He  that  taketh  not  his  cross  and  followeth  after  Me,  is  not  worthy 
of  Me."— Matt.  x.  38. 

This  utterance  of  our  Lord  occurs  in  the  first  lesson 
for  the  first  Sunday  in  I^ent,  and  may  well  furnish  the 
theme  for  our  meditation  at  the  beginning  of  the  Church's 
great  penitential  season.  Now  it  is  evident  that  this  is 
one  of  those  sayings  of  Christ  which  must  have  been 
often  on  His  lips,  for  we  find  in  the  brief  record  given  by 
the  evangehsts  three  distinct  occasions  upon  which  He 
uttered  it.  And  these  three  utterances  occurred  in  the 
three  successive  years  of  His  ministry,  at  the  beginning, 
in  the  middle,  and  at  the  end.  The  first  was  when  He 
sent  forth  His  disciples  to  preach  the  gospel  of  the  king- 
dom. They  were  to  announce  this  as  an  essential  con- 
dition of  discipleship :  "  He  that  taketh  not  his  cross  and 
followeth  after  Me,  is  not  worthy  of  Me."  The  second 
was  upon  the  occasion  of  Peter's  great  confession: 
"  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  hving  God."  It  is 
recorded  by  all  three  of  the  synoptic  evangelists,  and  in 
almost  the  same  words:  "If  any  man  will  come  after 
Me,  let  him  deny  himself  and  take  up  his  cross,  and 
follow  Me."  And  the  third  occasion  was  when  He  was 
at  the  zenith  of  His  popularity  and  great  multitudes 
eagerly  followed  Him,  in  highly  wrought  expectation 

i66 


Self-denial  and  the  Cross  167 

of  the  near  approach  of  His  kingdom,  He  turned  and 
said  unto  them:  "Whosoever  doth  not  bear  his  cross 
and  follow  Me  cannot  be  My  disciple." 

Thus  from  the  very  beginning  the  religion  of  Jesus 
Christ  was  the  religion  of  the  cross.  Not  only  did  He 
Himself  see  the  bitter,  bloody  cross  of  Calvary  before 
Him  as  the  crown  and  consummation  of  His  career  as 
the  Saviour  of  the  world,  but  He  held  up  the  cross  to 
His  disciples  as  their  destiny  too.  Every  man  who 
would  follow  Him  must  be  a  cross-bearer. 

I.  It  is  plain,  then — and  this  is  my  first  thought  this 
morning — that  the  text  declares  a  universal  condition 
of  discipleship.  "  He  that  taketh  not  his  cross  and  fol- 
loweth  after  Me,  is  not  worthy  of  Me."  This  was  a  prin- 
ciple not  for  that  age  only,  nor  for  the  ages  of  persecu- 
tion only,  when  life  and  liberty  were  often  the  price  of 
being  a  disciple  of  Christ,  but  for  every  age  and  for  all 
conditions  of  society.  Had  Pontius  Pilate,  or  Herod, 
or  the  emperor  himself  embraced  the  faith  of  Christ, 
they  too  would  have  been  under  the  same  indispen- 
sable necessity  of  taking  up  the  cross.  For  great  and 
small,  for  rich  and  poor,  the  condition  of  discipleship 
was  the  same :  "  If  any  man  will  come  after  Me,  let  him 
deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and  follow  Me.".  It 
is  because  the  Christian  Church  has  so  understood  it 
that  she  signs  upon  the  forehead  of  the  infant  at  the 
font  the  sign  of  the  cross.  Baptism  pledges  us  to  bear 
the  cross  after  Christ,  or,  to  use  the  apostle's  vivid  lan- 
guage, to  be  "crucified  with  Christ."  When  Breboeuf, 
one  of  that  devoted  band  of  Jesuit  missionaries  who 
carried  Christianity  to  the  red  men  of  Canada  (whose 
story  Parkman  has  told  so  well),  described  to  his  fellow 
missionaries  a  vision  of  the  cross  which  beckoned  them 


1 68        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

deeper  into  the  wilderness,  and  to  a  tribe  of  savages 
more  fierce  and  more  bloodthirsty  than  any  they  had 
yet  encountered,  they  asked  him,  "  How  large  was  the 
cross  that  you  saw?  "  ''  Large  enough,"  was  his  prompt 
reply,  "  to  crucify  us  all."  Yes,  my  brethren,  the  cross 
is  for  us  all,  and  unless  we  bear  it  after  Christ,  unless  we 
are  crucified  with  Christ,  we  cannot  be  His  disciples. 

II.  So  much  is  plain.  The  language  of  our  Lord 
makes  it  unmistakable  and  undeniable  that  the  bear- 
ing the  cross  is  a  universal  and  an  indispensable  condi- 
tion of  Christian  discipleship.  But  why?  What  is  the 
reason  of  a  condition  so  strict,  so  severe?  I  answer, 
because  of  the  pecuhar  nature  of  Christian  discipleship. 
To  be  a  disciple  of  Socrates,  of  Plato,  of  Zoroaster,  of 
Confucius,  of  Buddha,  implies  assent  to  the  doctrine 
they  taught,  to  the  philosophy  they  promulgated,  to 
the  rules  of  conduct  they  laid  down — nothing  more. 
But  to  be  a  disciple  of  Jesus  Christ  means  something 
very  different  to  this.  It  is  not  merely  to  accept  Him 
as  a  Teacher,  but  as  a  Redeemer,  as  a  Master,  as  a  Lord. 
It  is  to  become  the  slave  of  Jesus  Christ — to  take  His 
yoke  upon  us — to  submit  our  will  to  His  will.  It  is 
daily  to  ask,  ''  Lord,  what  wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do?" 
It  is  daily  to  deny  self  and  follow  Christ.  Ah!  to  follow 
Christ;  to  follow  Him  in  His  path  of  self-forgetting  love, 
renouncing  self,  crucifying  self,  if  need  be,  in  pursuing 
the  holy  aims  He  sets  before  us!  "If  any  man  will 
come  after  Me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his 
cross  daily,  and  follow  Me." 

But  granting  this,  it  may  still  be  demanded  why  does 
this  surrender  of  one's  will  and  one's  Hfe  to  Christ  in- 
volve bearing  the  cross?  Well,  for  two  reasons.  First, 
because  Christ  calls  us  to  follow  Him  in  what  we  may 


Self-denial  and  the  Cross  169 

call  a  cnisade — to  win  our  own  manhood  (a  holy  land) 
from  the  dominion  of  the  infidel.  Sin  in  its  manifold 
forms  is  the  unholy  power  that  has  usurped  dominion 
over  this  manhood  of  ours ;  and  we  must  fight  under  the 
banner  of  Christ  till  we  win  it  back,  province  by  prov- 
ince, inch  by  inch,  to  God  and  holiness.  This  conquest 
of  evil  passions  and  evil  purposes  that  have  intrenched 
themselves  within  our  souls  necessarily  involves  struggle 
and  the  cross.  In  this  daily-renewed  battle  against  out 
sinful  selves  there  is  full  play  for  self-denial — full  oppor- 
tunity to  take  up  our  cross  daily.  HoHness  is  a  cross; 
purity  is  a  cross;  patience  is  a  cross;  gentleness,  meek- 
ness, fortitude,  unselfishness,  each  Christian  virtue  is  a 
cross  to  our  stiU  sinful  manhood. 

But  there  is  another  reason.  Jesus  Christ  summons 
His  disciples  to  follow  Him  in  another  crusade.  It  is  to 
win  the  world  back  to  God.  It  is  God's  world;  but  the 
powers  of  sin  and  Satan  have  usurped  dominion  over  it. 
Christ  is  marshalling  His  hosts  against  these  evil  powers 
— oppression,  cruelty,  injustice,  wrong,  crime  in  all  its 
forms,  lust  in  all  its  hideous  shapes,  too  many  of  which 
deform  and  disgrace  this  fair  city  of  ours — and  He  calls 
His  disciples  to  go  out  with  Him  to  battle  against  these 
under  the  sacred  banner  of  the  cross.  Here,  too,  the 
soldiers  must  be  cross-bearers.  It  has  never  been  holi- 
day work  to  grapple  with  the  abuses,  the  wrongs,  the 
sufferings  of  mankind,  and  to  try  to  beat  them  down. 
The  story  of  the  heroes  and  heroines  who  have  given 
themselves  to  this  sort  of  work  is  like  the  story  of  Bre- 
bceuf  and  his  companions  in  the  frontier  wilderness — 
they  have  found  the  cross  was  large  enough  to  crucify 
them  all. 

HI,  Pass  we  now  to  another  question.    What  do  we 


170         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

mean  by  self-denial?  What  do  we  mean  by  the  cross 
that  the  Christian  must  bear? 

As  to  the  former,  "  the  word  is  often  and  much  mis- 
taken in  common  use,  as  if  it  meant  much  the  same  as 
self-control — the  control  of  the  lower  elements  of  our 
being  by  higher.  If  a  man  postpones  the  present  to  the 
future,  resolving  on  present  loss  for  the  sake  of  future 
gain,  this  is  often  called  self-denial.  If  a  man,  for  some 
high  object  of  his  own,  abjures  inferior  pleasures,  'scorns 
dehghts  and  lives  laborious  days,'  this  is  often  called 
self-denial.  If,  in  the  highest  sphere,  for  the  sake  of 
rest  hereafter,  he  inflicts  on  himself  great  unrest  now, 
this,  too,  is  often  called  self-denial." 

But  this  is  not  the  New  TestameDt  sense  of  self-denial. 
No.  Wlien  it  is  said,  "  Let  a  man  deny  himself/'  the 
meaning  rather  is,  let  him  ignore  self,  let  him  put  self 
aside,  let  him  dethrone  self  and  enthrone  Christ.  The 
ascetic  who  has  fasted  until  he  has  become  an  emaciated 
skeleton  may  still  be  the  subject  and  the  slave  of  self. 
Self-love,  self-idolatry,  may  still  rule  in  the  heart  of  a 
man  who  has  practised  the  most  rigorous  mortification 
of  the  flesh.  The  history  of  monasticisni  proves  this 
beyond  controversy.  Asceticism  has  no  necessary  nor 
any  natural  connection  with  a  holy  'ife. 

The  true  meaning,  then,  of  self-denial  is  self -surrender. 
St.  Paul  denied  himself  when  he  laid  down  his  life  and 
his  learning  and  all  his  cherished  ambitions  at  the  foot 
of  the  cross.  Self-denial  is  the  subordination  of  self, 
the  effacement  of  self,  the  surrender  of  self.  "It  is  no 
fanatical,  visionary  thing.  It  does  not  mean  a  mechan- 
ical asceticism.  It  does  not  contradict  or  condemn  the 
most  natural  activities  and  interests  of  human  life 
as  such.     It  does  not  absorb  nor  cancel  personality 


Self-denial  and  the  Cross  171 

Rather,  this  is  the  very  thing  to  enrich  the  resources  of 
personal  being.  But  it  has  lodged  it,  as  to  its  whole 
purpose  and  working,  upon  another  centre,  even  Jesus 
Christ  the  Lord."  * 

You  see,  then,  that  self-denial  is  not  something  to  be 
practised  say,  for  the  forty  days  of  Lent,  and  then  dis- 
continued. It  is  rather  a  state  of  heart  and  life  that  is 
entered  upon  for  all  our  I'fe.  It  is  to  be  practised  daily; 
because  it  is  a  daily  renewed  surrender  of  ourselves,  our 
souls,  and  oiu*  bodies  to  the  service  of  God.  And  Lent 
IS  a  season  wherein  we  may  make  special  and  sustained 
effort  to  find  out  the  secret  of  continually  surrendering 
self  to  Christ. 

WHiat  now  do  we  mean — or,  rather,  what  does  our 
Lord  mean  us  to  understand  by  the  cross  His  disciple 
must  daily  "  take  up"  ?  Not  surely  some  self-invented, 
self-inflicted  pain,  or  m.ortification,  or  suffering;  but 
that  cross  which  is  made  for  us,  and  upon  which  we  are 
laid,  not  by  our  own  hands,  or  by  our  own  will,  but  by 
others.  It  is  the  sharp  pain  that  we  suffer  in  refusing 
the  solicitations  of  sin,  in  resisting  the  assaults  of  our 
evil  passions.  It  is  the  reproach,  or  the  discredit,  or 
the  ridicule  we  encounter  when  we  steadfastly  tread  the 
path  of  duty.  It  is  the  opposition,  or  the  loss,  or  the 
ignominy  we  encounter  when  we  devote  ourselves  to 
some  act  of  self-sacrifice  for  others.  In  some  form  or 
other  there  will  be  a  cross  for  us  to  "take  up"  every 
day.  We  will  find  it  at  our  doors.  And  it  will  be 
plainly  ours :  meant  for  us  to  bear,  and  not  another. 
Either  the  providential  circumstances  in  which  we  are 
placed  wdll  prepare  us  a  cross;  or  the  temptations  that 
we  daily  encounter;  or  the  evil  will,  or  the  malice,  or  the 
*  Rt.Rev.  H.  G.  Moule.^ 


172        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

uncharity,  or  the  unrighteous  judgment  of  men.  And 
let  us  remember,  our  Master  took  up  His  cross  though 
Pontius  Pilate  had  ordered  it  for  Him.  Shall  we  then 
refuse  to  bear  our  cross,  or  bear  it  with  a  rebellious 
heart,  because  we  see  in  it  so  plainly  the  evil  hand  and 
the  evil  intent  of  man?  Shall  we  not  rather  meekly 
"  take  it  up  "  and  patiently  bear  it,  when  we  recall  our 
Master's  words  to  the  Roman  governor,  "  Thou  couldest 
have  no  power  at  all  against  Me  except  it  were  given 
thee  from  above"? 

It  is  said  that  "  among  all  the  letters  that  came  home 
from  the  East  during  the  Crimean  War,  one  of  the  most 
affectmg  was  that  of  a  little  drummer-boy  to  his  mother. 
After  describing  the  hardships  of  that  memorable  winter, 
the  cold  and  pitiless  wind,  the  hunger  and  nakedness 
which  the  army  endured,  he  concluded  the  letter  with 
the  simple  and  touching  words,  'But,  mother,  it's  our 
duly,  and  for  our  duty  we  will  die.'  " 

Brethren,  we,  who  are  soldiers  of  Christ,  may  emulate 
the  little  drummer-boy's  devotion  to  duty.  The  cross 
which  we  find  so  heavy  to  bear — it  is  our  duty  as  His 
disciples  to  take  it  up  daily  and  bear  it  bravely,  patiently 
to  our  Calvary — faithful,  if  need  be,  even  unto  death. 

And  when  we  remember  that  the  bitter  cross  became 
the  sweet  fountain  of  a  world's  consolation,  and  that 
from  Golgotha,  the  place  of  a  skull,  sprang  the  river  of 
water  of  life,  whose  streams  have  made  the  wilderness 
to  rejoice  and  blossom  as  the  rose,  we  may  well  count  it 
a  privilege  and  a  glory  that  we  are  permitted  to  be  par- 
takers of  the  sufferings  of  Clu-ist — that  to  us  it  is  granted 
to  bear  our  cross  after  the  Redeemer  of  the  world;  and 
we  may  humbly,  but  confidently,  expect  that  the  cross 
which  is  laid  on  our  shoulders  will  become  in  some  sort 


Self-denial  and  the  Cross  173 

a  tree  of  life,  whose  leaves  will  be  for  the  help  and  heal- 
ing of  some  troubled  or  doubting  soul. 

It  is  they  who  have  come  out  of  great  tribulation  that 
become  the  sons  and  daughters  of  consolation  to  their 
fellow  men.  He  who  has  patiently  borne  his  cross  be- 
comes the  honored  messenger  of  that  wondrous  Cross  of 
the  suffering  Saviour,  and  of  its  eternal  victory  over 
sin,  Satan,  and  death. 

In  conclusion,  I  point  again  to  the  words  of  our  Master: 
"  He  that  taketh  not  his  cross  and  followeth  after  Me, 
is  not  worthy  of  Me."  "  If  any  man  will  come  after 
Me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and 
follow  Me."  "  Whosoever  doth  not  bear  his  cross  and 
follow  Me,  cannot  be  My  disciple."  And  I  ask  every 
man  and  woman  in  this  assembly  to  measure  his  disciple- 
ship,  to  test  his  Christianity,  by  this  standard.  My 
brethren,  is  the  sign  of  the  cross  upon  your  life?  Are 
you  crucified  wath  Christ?  Are  your  sinful  affections 
and  lusts  nailed  to  His  cross?  Are  you  daily  taking  up 
your  cross  and  following  Him  whose  name  and  sign  you 
bear  ?  In  a  world  like  this,  and  with  sinful  natures  such 
as  ours,  it  is  impossible  to  be  a  Christian  without  being 
a  cross-bearer.  If  we  will  be  faithful  to  our  crucified 
Lord,  every  day  will  furnish  occasion,  in  business,  in 
society^  at  home,  or  abroad,  to  take  up  the  cross  of  loss, 
or  of  labor,  or  of  suffering,  or  of  ridicule,  or  of  reproach, 
or  of  self-renunciation  in  some  form.  Brethren,  are 
you  doing  it?  Answer  before  God  to-day,  what  is  the 
spirit  of  your  life?  Is  it  the  spirit  of  self-forgetfulness, 
self-effacement,  self-consecration,  or  is  it  rather  the 
spirit  of  self-assertion,  self-seeking,  self-pleasing,  self-in- 
dulgence? I  see  women  wearing  jewelled  crosses  on 
their  bosoms;  I  see  clergymen  with  the  cross  dangling 


174         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

from  their  watch-chains;  but  ah!  (to  say  nothing  of 
this  profanation  of  so  holy  a  sign)  the  Saviour,  whose 
bitter  cross  was  the  instrument  of  our  salvation,  looks 
for  the  holy  sign,  not  as  an  ornament  to  our  persons, 
but  as  the  token  of  a  life  governed  and  consecrated  by 
the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice.  Be  it  the  business  of  this 
holy  season  to  stamp  the  sign  of  the  cross  upon  our  inner 
man — the  hidden  man  of  the  heart. 


THE   TEMPTATION   OF   CHRIST 

FOR  THE   FIRST   SUNDAY   IN   LENT 

"  Then  was  Jesus  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness,  to  be 
tempted  of  the  devil." — St.  Matt.  iv.  1. 

The  temptation  of  Christ  presents  one  of  the  most 
profound,  one  of  the  most  difficult,  and  at  the  same 
time  one  of  the  most  instructive  subjects  of  study.  It 
is  a  mystery  the  depth  of  which  no  plummet-hne  of 
human  investigation  has  ever  fully  fathomed.  Yet  it 
is  one  of  those  mysteries  which  radiate  light  upon  the 
souls  of  men — like  the  sunlight  in  which  all  men  rejoice, 
though  even  the  profoundest  philosopher  has  not  fully 
penetrated  the  laws  of  its  being. 

The  temptation  has,  no  doubt,  a  close  connection 
with  the  development  of  the  perfect  manhood  of  Jesus. 
It  was  part  of  that  experience  of  trial  to  which  the  in- 
spired writer  refers  when  he  says  of  Christ,  "  He  learned 
obedience  by  the  things  which  He  suffered,"  "He  was 
made  perfect  through  suffering." 

No  doubt,  also,  the  temptation  had  a  necessary  rela- 
tion to  the  completeness  of  the  high-priesthood  of  Jesus 
Christ.  We  have  the  same  inspired  authority  for  saying 
that  ' '  in  that  He  Himself  hath  suffered  being  tempted. 
He  is  able  to  succor  them  that  are  tempted."  Yes, 
our  assurance  of  His  complete  sympathy  and  compre- 
hension of  our  need  rests  upon  the  fact  of  His  temp- 
ers 


176        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

tation.  It  is  the  knowledge  that  "  He  was  in  all  points 
tempted  like  as  we  are"  that  makes  us  certain  that 
we  have  not  an  high-priest  which  cannot  be  touched 
with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities." 

We  need  not  hesitate  to  affirm  still  another  aspect 
of  the  temptation.  It  has  a  soteriological  significance. 
It  was  part  of  the  saving  mission  of  Christ.  It  fitted 
into  His  great  work  of  redemption.  It  was  a  by  no 
means  unimportant  element  in  that  great  sacrifice  which 
He  offered,  which  indeed  He  was  offering  throughout 
His  whole  life,  and  which  reached  its  tremendous  con- 
summation when  He  cried  on  Calvary, ' '  It  is  finished  !  " 

How  fitting,  then,  that  the  Church  should  teach  us  to 
pray  in  the  Litany,  ''  By  Thy  Fasting  and  Temptation, 
Good  Lord,  deliver  us  !  " 

But  to  none  of  these  aspects  of  this  great  theme  do  I 
intend  to  direct  your  thoughts  to-day.  Rather  I  would 
ask  you  to  refiect  upon  its  practical  relation  to  the  sub- 
ject of  man's  temptation — of  our  own  temptation  by 
the  devil.  Let  us  ask  ourselves  what  light  this  scene 
in  the  wilderness  throws  upon  a  subject  of  such  vital 
moment  to  every  moral  being  on  these  shores  of  time — 
temptation? 

1.  Well,  in  the  first  place,  it  may  well  remind  us  that 
no  man,  however  noble,  however  pure,  however  relig- 
ious, is  exempt  from  temptation.  If  even  Jesus  Christ 
was  tempted — yes,  tempted  sorely,  tempted  severely, 
tempted  to  the  point  of  suffering — we  may  rest  assured 
that  to-day  the  best  and  purest  of  us  all  will  be  tempted, 
as  well  as  the  lowest  and  the  worst.  If  it  is  human  to 
err,  much  more  is  it  human  to  be  tempted  to  err,  and  so 
long  as  we  are  in  this  tabernacle,  so  long  as  we  are  still 
in  the  arena  of  human  life,  we  shall  be  exposed  to  temp- 


The  Temptation  of  Christ  177 

tation.  The  form  in  which  temptation  comes  will  vary. 
What  would  be  a  perilous  temptation  to  one  man 
would  be  no  temptation  at  all  to  another,  would  perhaps 
simply  disgust  him.  What  would  tempt  a  man  sorely 
at  one  period  of  life  or  at  one  stage  in  the  development  of 
his  character  would  not  in  the  least  move  him  at  another 
time.  But  the  tempter  will  know  how  to  make  the 
temptation  suit  the  man — suit  his  tastes,  his  age,  his 
disposition,  his  desires,  liis  mental,  or  physical,  or  even 
his  spiritual  development. 

Yes,  the  purest  saint  on  earth,  as  well  as  the  most 
worldly,  or  the  most  wicked  man,  has  need  to  pray  fer- 
vently, * '  Lead  us  not  into  temptation." 

2.  It  is  pertinent  in  the  next  place  to  take  note  that 
we  cannot  escape  temptation  by  isolating  ourselves  from 
our  feUow  men — by  fleeing  from  the  occupations  and 
associations  of  life.  Jesus  was  assailed  by  temptation 
in  the  solitude  of  the  wilderness.  How  vain,  then,  to 
suppose  that  we  can  find  a  refuge  from  the  tempter  in 
I  the  cloister,  or  in  the  desert,  or  in  a  sohtary,  sequestered 
life!  We  cannot  escape  our  own  hearts,  do  what  we 
will;  and  wherever  the  human  heart  is,  with  its  imagi- 
nations, its  desires,  its  ambitions,  its  weaknesses,  its 
passions,  its  evil  thoughts,  there  is  the  material  for 
kindhng  the  fire  of  temptation.  Neither  can  we  insure 
ourselves  against  temptation  by  religious  exercises. 
Christ  was  tempted  after  He  had  been  fasting  forty  days 
and  forty  nights !  The  very  consequence  of  His  fasting — 
His  exhaustion  and  hunger — was  made  by  the  tempter 
the  hook  on  which  to  hang  his  temptation.  We  shall 
not  escape  the  assaults  of  temptation,  for  example,  by 
a  strict  observance  of  Lent.  The  tempter  is  relentless, 
and  he  will  pursue  us  with  his  temptations  even  into 


1 78        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

the  sanctuary  of  God's  service — even  into  the  solitude 
of  our  most  earnest  prayer. 

At  the  same  time,  my  brethren,  how  plain  our  Saviour's 
example  makes  it  that  it  is  well,  that  it  is  wise,  to  seclude 
ourselves  from  the  world,  with  a  view  to  more  frequent 
prayer,  and  more  earnest  devotion,  for  such  a  season  as 
the  forty  days  of  Lent,  and  to  associate  with  this  seclu-  | 
sion  acts  of  self-denial. 

We  see  Christ,  stripped  of  His  royalty,  of  His  glory, 
of  His  divine  exemption  from  temptation,  grappling 
with  the  arch  tempter.  He  has  touched  the  lowest 
point  of  His  voluntary  humiliation;  He  submits  to  be 
tempted  as  a  man.  Lo !  the  evil  one  approaches,  assails 
Him,  presses  His  human  soul  with  every  artful,  plausi- 
ble, seductive  wile.  In  vain.  The  Son  of  Man  comes  off 
conqueror.  How?  Not  by  the  exercise  of  His  divine  \ 
power,  but,  to  use  TertulUan's  phrase,  just  as  you  and 
I  must  conquer — "  by  the  sole  arms  of  faith  and  prayer." 
And  how  has  He  prepared  Himself  for  this  conflict  with 
Satan — for  this  sudden  and  concentrated  onslaught  of 
temptation?  By  withdrawing  into  the  sohtude  of  the 
wilderness,  and  by  a  prolonged  period  of  communion 
with  His  own  soul  and  with  God.  < 

Brethren,  surely  a  lesson  of  deepest  import  lies  in  this 
example  of  Christ. 

3.  A  third  hght-flash  from  this  mysterious  scene. 
In  His  battle  with  the  tempter  the  Son  of  Man  meets 
every  assault,  foils  every  deadly  thrust  by  one  and  the 
same  weapon — "the  sword  of  the  spirit  which  is  the  i 
Word  of  God."  To  each  suggestion  of  evil  He  replies, 
"  It  is  written.^'  Three  times  under  specious  guise  the 
evil  one  insinuates  his  temptations,  and  three  times 
Jesus  Christ  repels  him  by  an  appeal  to  the  revealed 


The  Temptation  of  Christ  179 

will    of    God  as  contained  in  Holy  Scripture:   "It  is 
written,'^  "It  is  written,"  "  It  is  written." 

My  brethren,  it  is  a  truth  of  the  very  first  importance 
that  confronts  us  here.     The  only  ultimate  security  that 
any  man  can  have  against  the  power  of  temptation  is 
in  the  clear  perception  of  an  eternal,  an  immutable,  a 
divine  standard    of  conduct,  by  which  to    judge — to 
approve  or  to  condemn — every  act  or  course  of  action 
that  is  suggested.     If  temptation  came  in  its  naked, 
undisguised  character,  with  evil  stamped  plainly  upon 
its  forehead,  so  that  the  tempted  man  could  not  but 
know  at  a  glance  its  origin  and  its  true  parentage,  then 
indeed  it  were  comparatively  easy  to  resist  and  to  repel 
it.     But  more  frequently  it  comes  with  a  fair  exterior, 
in  specious  guise,  wearing  the  mask  of  necessity  or  ex- 
pediency, or  even  of  religion.     So  it  was  in  the  tempta- 
tion of  Christ.     The  evil  one  doubtless  assumed  a  dis- 
guise.    He  who  at  need  can  take  the  form  of  an  angel 
of  light  would  be  at  no  loss  to  approach  the  Son  of  Man 
in  the  wilderness  in  an  assumed  character — perhaps  as 
some   venerable  sage  or  rabbi  offering  wise  counsel  in 
the  hour  of  His  weakness.      And  how  plausible  were 
his  suggestions !    Jesus  was  exhausted  by  His  long  fast ; 
He  was  famishing  with  hunger.     Then  let  Him  at  once 
demonstrate  to  this  venerable  stranger  His  divinity  and 
at  the  same  time  supply  food  for  His  famishing  body: 
"  If  Thou  be  the  Son  of  God,  command  that  these  stones 
be  made  bread."     But  underneath  this  fair-seeming  pro- 
posal was  in  reality  a  temptation  to  despair  of  God's 
providence,  to  refuse  to  submit  to  the  conditions  that 
His  holy  will  had  appointed,  and  to  use  for  His  own 
benefit  power  entrusted  to  Him  for  the  sole  uses  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.     Jesus  is  not  deceived.     He  brings 


i8o        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

the  proposal  to  the  test  of  the  revealed  will  of  God  and 
at  once  perceives  its  true  character. 

Not  otherwise,  spite  of  enormous  differences,  does 
the  tempter  assail  men  and  women  in  this  twentieth 
century,  whether  in  crowded  thoroughfares  or  in  soHtude. 
He  comes  in  some  disguise,  in  some  assumed  garb. 
He  speaks,  perhaps,  through  some  companion,  or  busi- 
ness associate,  or  friend,  or  close  relative.  He  makes 
his  propositions  in  specious  form,  masking  their  real 
character,  dressing  them  up  in  respectable  guise,  even 
throwing  about  them  the  cloak  of  virtue  or  of  religion. 
Now,  what  is  our  security  against  these  artful  assaults 
of  the  evil  one?  How  are  we  to  penetrate  the  disguise 
of  the  tempter  and  uncover  the  real  character  of  the 
temptations  that  present  themselves?  I  answer  we 
must  have  a  pure  conscience  and  an  eternal,  immuta- 
ble standard  of  right  and  wTong,  to  the  test  of  which 
every  action  must  be  submitted.  But  such  a  fixed  and 
absolute  measure  of  human  conduct  we  shaU  only  find 
where  the  Man  of  Nazareth  found  it  that  day  in  the  wil- 
derness conflict — in  the  revealed  will  of  God.  Doubt- 
less God  speaks  through  the  conscience.  We  recognize 
His  hand  in  the  tide  of  remorse  as  in  the  tides  of  the  sea. 
For,  as  Victor  Hugo  says,  "God  upheaves  the  soul  as 
well  as  the  ocean."  But  the  reason — the  conscience — 
apart  from  the  illumination  of  revelation  cannot  sup- 
ply a  criterion  sufficiently  absolute,  nor  can  it  speak  with 
such  paramount  authority  as  is  demanded.  Tempted 
man  must  have  in  his  emergency  a  law  written  on  tables 
of  stone  and  with  the  finger  of  God  Himself.  Nay,  he 
must  hear  the  echo  of  the  voice  of  the  Judge  of  all  the 
earth,  the  eternal,  the  omnipotent,  the  all-holy.  He 
must  perceive,  as  in  the  blaze  of  the  noonday  light,  that 


The  Temptation  of  Christ  i8i 

righteousness  is  as  immutable  as  God  Himself,  that 
truth  is  eternal,  unchangeable,  that  moral  e\dl  is  eternally- 
accursed,  and  that  to  compromise  with  sin  in  any  form — 
with  impurity,  with  falsehood,  with  dishonesty — is  trea- 
son to  one's  self  and  rebellion  against  the  eternal  power 
of  God — is  in  fact  a  cowardly  and  guilty  surrender  of  the 
soul  to  its  evil  destiny.  But  where  shall  men  gain  such 
profound  convictions  save  in  the  frequent  pondering  of 
the  words  of  Holy  Scripture?  After  all,  the  voice  of 
God  is  heard  in  its  pages  as  nowhere  else.  As  we  read, 
the  impression  of  the  presence  and  power  of  a  personal 
God,  Creator,  Ruler,  and  Judge  grows  more  and  more 
distinct.  And  as  its  wondrous  panorama  of  revelation 
unfolds,  we  behold  in  Christ  the  resplendent  truth  that 
this  great  God  is  also  our  Father,  and  then  conscience 
becomes  hoUer,  mightier,  because  we  perceive  that  it 
is  not  so  much  the  echo  of  His  wrath  as  the  reproach 
of  His  love. 

Yes,  my  brethren,  the  man  who  is  penetrated  with 
the  teaching  of  the  Bible — who  instinctively  turns  to  the 
Bible  as  his  standard  of  conduct — who,  like  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  settles  the  critical  questions  of  life  by  an 
"It  is  written,"  "It  is  written" — he  is  the  man  who 
will  most  successfully  resist  the  temptations  of  the 
devil. 

Let  no  man  say  to  himself  that  there  is  no  occasion 
under  the  conditions  of  our  modern  life  for  such  intense 
anxiety  about  the  issue  of  temptation.  Ah,  there  are 
"terribly  tragic  possibilities  which  lie  in  every  human 
life."  There  is  a  wilderness  and  a  temptation  scene, 
with  issues  of  eternal  import,  for  every  man  and  woman 
of  us  all.  We  are  civilized,  indeed,  and  more  or  less 
refined,  but  temptation  is  none  the  less  an  ever-threaten- 


1 82         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

ing  danger,  nor  is  sin  any  the  less  deadly  in  its  effect 
upon  the  soul.  Well  has  a  recent  writer  said,  "In  a 
highly  civihzed  society  sin  is  the  more  dangerous  because 
it  takes  on  so  many  refined  forms,  and  because  it  is  in 
a  way  hidden  by  the  network  of  institutions  and  safe- 
guards with  which  the  individual  is  surrounded."  But, 
spite  of  all  the  safeguards  and  the  decencies  and  the 
refinements  of  our  modern  life,  how  often  do  men  fall 
from  the  pinnacle  of  public  confidence  and  esteem  into 
the  bottomless  abyss  of  sin  and  guilt  and  shame!  Ah, 
my  brethren,  tremendous  are  the  issues  that  hang  upon 
these  temptation  scenes,  which,  unseen  of  men,  trans- 
pire in  the  solitude  and  secrecy  of  the  human  soul.  We 
should  be  preparing  for  them  constantly  by  cultivating 
faith  and  the  love  of  all  things  pure  and  high,  and  by 
watchfulness  and  prayer. 

Let  this  temptation  of  Christ  in  the  wilderness  teach 
us,  by  the  force  of  His  example,  to  establish  in  our  minds 
an  eternal  and  absolute  and  immutable  standard  of 
conduct,  by  reading,  by  pondering  God's  holy  word,  by 
saturating  our  minds  and  hearts  with  its  teachings,  by 
keeping  our  thoughts  every  day  under  the  controlling 
influence  of  its  revelations. 

Then  shall  we  be  forearmed  against  the  wiles  of  the 
tempter.  Then,  though  the  suggested  sin  come  with 
fair  speeches  and  in  specious  guise  of  the  necessary,  or 
the  expedient,  or  the  becoming,  or  the  customary  thing, 
we  shall  penetrate  its  disguise,  we  shall  recognize  its 
true  character,  we  shall  reject  and  refuse  it  because 
it  is  contrary  to  the  revealed  will  of  God.  ' '  It  is  written  " 
will  be  to  us,  as  to  the  Son  of  Man,  our  sword  and  shield 
of  defence  in  the  time  of  temptation. 

And  then  to  us  there  will  be  a  recourse  that  was  not 


The  Temptation  of  Christ  1 83 

open  to  Him,  We  can  cry  to  the  once-tempted  Son  of 
Man,  our  Mediator  and  High-priest,  for  sympathy,  for 
help,  for  light,  for  strength;  and  He  Who  was  tempted 
in  all  points  hke  as  we  are  will  be  both  able  and  willing 
to  succor  us  in  our  need. 


THE  SYROPHCENICIAN  WOMAN 

FOR   THE   SECOND   SUNDAY   IN   LENT 

"  Then  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  her,  '  0  woman,  great  is  thy 
faith;  be  it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt.'  And  her  daughter 
was  made  whole  from  that  very  hour." — Matt.  xv.  28. 

Many  jewels  sparkle  on  the  brow  of  the  beautiful 
story  of  the  Syrophoenician  woman.  Here  is  a  revela- 
tion on  the  pages  of  the  most  Judaic  of  the  evangelists 
of  the  catholicity  of  the  mission  of  Jesus.  (This  woman 
was  a  Greek — in  the  eyes  of  the  Jews  a  Gentile  dog — 
yet  she  shares  the  children's  bread.)  Here  is  a  pathetic 
example  of  one  of  the  divinest  things  in  this  sorrowful 
world — the  passionate  devotion  of  a  mother  for  her 
daughter.  Here  is  a  signal  instance  of  the  omnipotence 
of  faith.  Here  is  a  most  instructive  illustration  of  the 
prevailing  power  of  persevering  prayer.  Here  is  seen 
the  angelic  beauty  and  the  conquering  might  of  human 
mediation.  Here  shines  the  light  of  hope  to  the  out- 
cast and  the  abandoned  whom  the  world,  yes,  and  even 
the  Church,  is  ready  to  class  with  the  dogs  under  the 
table. 

Peculiar  circumstances  had  led  Jesus  to  withdraw 
from  His  familiar  haunts  in  Galilee  far  to  the  north- 
ward, into  the  coasts  of  Tyre  and  Sidon.  He  sought 
retirement,  rest,  seclusion  from  public  notice.  Arrived 
at  His  destination,  "He  entered  into  an  house  and 
would  have  no  man  know  it."      But  "  He  could  not  be 

184 


The  Syrophoenician  Woman  185 

hid."  The  news  of  His  arrival  spread  to  the  surround- 
ing country.  From  Hp  to  hp  passed  the  story  that  the 
great  Galilean  Prophet,  of  whom  so  many  wonderful 
things  were  told,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  was  in  their  bor- 
ders. 

Into  one  distracted  heart  the  news  sent  a  sudden 
ray  of  hope.  A  mother  whose  heart  was  breaking  be- 
cause her  only  daughter  had  become  a  demoniac  heard 
it  with  joy.  Like  a  flash  of  light  out  of  a  midnight  sky 
on  a  stormy  sea  came  the  thought  that  the  Prophet  of 
Nazareth  could  heal  her  darling.  She  had  heard  of 
His  miracles  in  the  Jews'  country.  Surely  He  can  and 
will  work  like  miracles  here  on  the  borders  of  Tyre  and 
Sidon!  She  will  go  to  Him  without  delay  and  appeal 
to  Him  on  behalf  of  her  child.  He  will  be  sure  to  re- 
ceive her  kindly,  for  the  fame  of  His  gentleness  and 
sympathy  has  gone  before  Him.  So  she  leaves  her 
home  and  hastens  to  the  village  where  Jesus  was,  and, 
unceremoniously  approaching  Him,  cries  with  all  the 
bluntness  and  intensity  of  a  soul  in  distress:  "Have 
mercy  on  me,  O  Lord,  thou  Son  of  Da\dd;  my  daugh- 
ter is  grievously  vexed  with  a  devil."  But  to  her 
earnest  entreaty  Jesus  returns  no  response.  The  door 
of  mercy  at  which  she  has  knocked  so  loudly  remains 
fast  closed.  Not  a  syllable  comes  from  the  lips  of 
Jesus!  Silence  is  His  only  reply.  "He  answered  her 
not  a  word!"  Apparently  she  redoubles  her  cry,  for 
"the  disciples  came  and  besought  Him,  saying.  Send 
her  away  for  she  crieth  after  us."  Her  importunate 
pleadings  were  annoying.  These  His  followers  would 
fain  be  rid  of  her,  and  so  they  beg  that  He  will  grant 
her  request  and  send  her  away.  But  Jesus  only  re- 
phes:  "I  am  not  sent  but  unto  the  lost  sheep  of  the 


1 86        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

house  of  Israel."  As  if  to  say,  My  mission  is  to  the 
Jews.  This  woman  is  a  Gentile.  What  claim  has  she 
upon  Me?  Her  own  words  testify  that  she  has  no  right 
to  expect  anything  at  My  hands ;  for  she  has  addressed 
Me  as  the  Son  of  David,  the  Jewish  Messiah! 

We,  my  brethren,  can  understand  these  words  of 
Christ,  for  we  know  that  though  His  mission  was  really 
to  the  whole  family  of  man,  and  His  kingdom  was  to 
be  a  world-embracing  kingdom,  without  distinction  of 
race  or  condition,  yet,  in  the  wisdom  of  God,  for  reasons 
which,  in  part  at  least,  we  can  see,  His  personal  min- 
istry was  to  the  Jews  alone.  The  seed  of  the  great 
Tree,  under  whose  branches  all  nations  were  to  find 
shelter,  must  be  planted  in  Jewish  soil.  The  kingdom 
of  Christ  must  have  a  Jewish  foundation.  But  from 
the  woman  of  Syro-Phoenicia  all  this  was  hidden.  The 
words  of  Christ  could  have  appeared  to  mean  noth- 
ing less  than  a  stern  refusal  to  listen  to  her  plea — a 
declaration,  in  fact,  that  she  asked  a  boon  which  He 
could  not  grant.  It  was  as  if  He  had  with  His  own 
hands  and  before  her  eyes  double-barred  and  bolted 
the  gate  of  mercy  against  her ! 

But  her  faith  rises  superior  to  even  so  plain  a  refusal. 
She  will  not  give  up  her  cause;  she  only  redoubles  her 
loud  knocking  at  the  door  of  His  mercy.  Hitherto  she 
had  stood  at  a  distance  and  cried  for  help.  Now  she 
presses  closer — falls  prostrate  at  His  feet  and  worships 
Him,  saying,  with  yet  more  passionate  entreaty :  "  Lord 
help  me  !  " 

She  had  absolutely  nothing  to  rest  her  hope  upon. 
To  the  eye  of  sense  and  of  reason  her  case  was  hopeless, 
Christ's  own  words  were  in  her  ears  declaring,  appar- 
ently, that  He  could  not  grant  her  prayer.    But  she 


The  Syrophoenician  Woman  187 

refused  to  abandon  her  plea;  she  appeals  from  His 
words  to  Himself.     He  was  the  Lord ;  He  was  the  Om- 
nipotent; He  was  the  All-merciful.     Nothing,  not  even 
the  apparent  sense  of  His  own  words  could  shake  her 
conviction  of  that  fact;  and  to  it  she  clung  as  her  sheet- 
anchor  of  hope.     She  was  learning,  too,  to  understand 
Him  better.     She  might  have  been  in  error  in  appealing 
to  Him  as  the  Son  of  David.     Perhaps  she,  a  Gentile, 
had  no  claim  upon  the  Messiah  of  the  Jews;  perhaps 
she  had  come  there  with  too  narrow  and  inadequate  a 
view  of  His  mission.     Yes,  she  had  thought  of  Him  as 
those  dw^ellers  in  Tyre  and  Sidon  had  done  who  had  re- 
ported Him  to  her  months  before,  when  they  returned 
from  Galilee,  as  a  mere  wonder-worker.     But  now  she 
is  in  His  presence  she  recognizes  Him  as  the  Lord  of  all 
power  and  might,  equally  also  of  all  pity  and  compas- 
sion— no  mere  Jewish  Messiah;  no  mere  worker  of  mir- 
acles.    He  was  her  Lord,  if  she  was  a  Gentile !     He  was 
her  only  help,  and  as  such  she  would  still  appeal  to  Him. 
But  her  appeal  is  vain.     For  the  first  time  Jesus 
speaks  to  her;  but  it  is  only,  one  would  think,  to  drive 
her  to  despair.     For  His  words  give  no  hint  of  relenting. 
Rather  they  seem  to  convey  a  harsh  rebuke  for  her  pre- 
sumptuous   importunity.     He  answered  and  said:  "It 
is  not  meet  to  take  the  children's  bread,  and  to  cast  it  to 
dogs." 

What  terrible  words!  To  the  ear  how  harsh — yea, 
how  cruel!  But  they  did  not  express  the  mind  of  Jesus 
touching  the  relation  of  Jew  and  Gentile — of  that  His 
own  teaching  elsewhere,  and  the  teaching  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  through  His  apostles,  make  us  quite  sure.  No, 
he  spoke  as  a  Jew;  He  used  language  constantly  on  the 
lips  of  the  Jews,  in  order  to  let  His  disciples  see  whither 


1 88        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

that  Jewish  narrowness  would  lead.  As  George  Mac- 
Donald  says,  "  He  would  arouse  in  them  the  disapproval 
of  their  own  exclusiveness  by  putting  it  on  for  a  mo- 
ment that  they  might  see  it  apart  from  themselves." 
"About  Him  stood  His  disciples,  proud  of  being  Jews. 
For  their  sakes  this  chosen  Gentile  must  be  pained  a 
little  further,  must  bear  with  her  Saviour  her  part  of 
suffering  for  the  redemption  even  of  His  chosen  apostles. 
They  counted  themselves  the  children,  and  such  as  she 
the  dogs.  He  must  show  them  the  divine  nature  dwell- 
ing in  her.  For  the  sake  of  this  revelation  He  must  try 
her  sorely,  but  not  for  long." 

But  now  hear  the  stricken  mother's  answer!  Does 
she  jdeld?  Does  she  despair?  Does  she  turn  and  go 
back  to  her  poor  demoniac  daughter,  defeated,  humili- 
ated, crushed?  No;  against  hope  she  believes  in  hope. 
Out  of  the  jaws  of  despair  she  plucks  a  sure  pledge  of 
confidence.  "  Truth,  Lord;  yet  the  dogs  eat  of  the  crumbs 
which  fall  from  their  masters'  table."  Ah!  here  was  in- 
deed an  invincible  faith!  No  more  illustrious  example 
of  it  is  to  be  found  in  Holy  Scripture!  And  it  was 
coupled  with  the  deepest  humihty.  She  accepts  the  op- 
probrium that  lay  in  the  words  of  Jesus  and  turns  it 
into  an  argument  for  mercy.  "I  am  a  heathen,  and 
in  the  Father's  house  they  are  as  the  dogs,  rather  than 
as  the  children.  But,  Lord,  even  the  dogs  eat  of  the 
crumbs  that  fall  from  their  masters'  table. "  It  was 
enough.  Like  Jacob  she  had  wrestled;  like  Jacob  she 
had  conquered.  "Then  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto 
her,  0  woman,  great  is  thy  faith.  Be  it  unto  thee  even 
as  thou  wilt.  And  her  daughter  was  made  whole  from 
that  very  hour." 

This  narrative,  as  I  said  at  the  outset,  is  studded 


The  Syrophoenician  Woman  189 

with  priceless  jewels  of  truth.  I  must  choose  one  of 
them — time  will  allow  no  more — and  try  to  hold  it  up 
to  the  Hght  that  you  may  see  how  beautiful  it  is.  Let 
it  be,  The  discipline  of  faith  through  the  exercise  of 
prayer,  especially  intercessory  prayer.  Here  is  a  very 
homely  picture — there  are  many  hke  it,  let  us  hope,  in 
this  congregation — a  mother  praying  for  her  daughter. 

If  prayer  is  a  power  when  we  use  it  for  ourselves  it 
must  be  also  when  we  use  it  for  others.  The  man  or 
woman  who  prays  becomes,  one  has  said,  "a  spiritual 
power";  as  it  were  "a  nerve  from  the  divine  brain," 
whence  power  goes  forth  upon  his  fellows.  He  is  "a 
redistributor "  of  the  divine  blessing.  This  woman  of 
Syro-Phoenicia  was  the  medium  of  blessing  and  heal- 
ing power  for  her  daughter.  She  pleaded,  she  en- 
treated, she  travailed,  and  at  last  she  conquered  for  her 
daughter.  Why  should  not  every  mother  be  a  like 
channel  of  grace  and  blessing  to  her  daughter,  and 
every  father  to  his  son?  Fathers  and  mothers,  culti- 
vate the  habit  of  prayer;  deepen  the  stream  of  your  re- 
ligious hfe;  walk  more  closely  with  God;  fill  the  store- 
houses of  your  souls  with  the  riches  of  divine  grace; 
and  your  children  will  fall  heirs  to  this  your  spiritual 
inheritance.  It  must  be  so;  it  is  written  in  the  divine 
statute-book.  As  your  own  faith  increases,  and  your 
spiritual  power,  you  become  a  stronger  magnet  to  draw 
your  children  to  God  and  good. 

But  the  scene  to  which  the  gospel  story  to-day  ad- 
mits us  teaches  us  the  direct  power  of  intercessory 
prayer.  This  is  one  of  the  truths  we  ought  to  hold  fast, 
or  if  we  have  let  it  go,  to  get  hold  of  it  again.  "  God  is 
the  hearer  and  answerer  of  prayer,"  and  we  may  pray 
one  for  another  in  the  sure  confidence  that  we  shall  not 


iQo        The  Gk)spel  in  the  Christian  Year 

pray  in  vain.  But  it  is  only  the  prayer  of  faith  that 
avails.  This  woman  of  Canaan  shows  us  how  we  ought 
to  pray — with  a  deep  conviction  of  the  need  of  our  chil- 
dren for  the  divine  help  and  healing,  far  beyond  all  that 
the  world  can  possibly  do  for  them;  a  quickened  sense 
of  the  peril  to  which  they  are  exposed  through  the  temp- 
tations of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil;  and  a 
strong  yearning  on  their  behalf  that  they  may  be  spirit- 
ually enhghtened  and  strengthened  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Such  wresthng  with  God  in  prayer  presents  a  spec- 
tacle too  holy  for  human  eyes. 

"  Only  angels  in  silent  awe 

Look  on  while  she  wrestles  there; 
So  often  life's  grandest  battle  scenes 
Veil  their  tumult  in  silent  prayer." 

When  you  pray  in  this  fashion,  my  brethren,  your 
prayer  will  have  power.  When  you  pray,  as  so  often 
you  do,  sluggishly,  coldly,  half-heartedly,  with  neither 
a  deep  sense  of  your  children's  need  nor  a  conviction  of 
the  power  of  Christ  to  come  to  their  aid — ah,  then  your 
prayers  will  be  as  water  spilled  upon  the  ground. 

But  perhaps  I  may  be  speaking  to  some  father  or 
mother  who  has  prayed  earnestly,  but  has  seen  no  re- 
sult of  his  prayers,  and  who,  consequently,  has  grown 
faint  in  prayer.  Ah!  look  at  this  mother  in  the  gospel 
story;  she  prayed  and  pleaded,  apparently  all  in  vain; 
she  got  no  answer;  Jesus  answered  her  never  a  word; 
and  when  at  last  He  did  speak  it  was  only  to  rebuff  her 
and  to  cast  her  petition  from  Him.  Yet  all  the  while 
He  was  treasuring  up  mercy  for  her;  not  one  of  her  cries 
for  help  was  unheeded;  not  one  of  her  agonizing  sup- 
plications for  her  afflicted  child  failed  to  touch  His 
heart.     If  Jesus  made  no  answer,  it  was  not  because  He 


The  Syrophoenician  Woman  191 

did  not  hear  and  heed  her  cry;  if  He  spoke  with  appar- 
ent harshness  it  was  only  in  appearance;  the  blessing 
was  only  deferred;  it  was  never  one  moment  in  doubt. 
But  she  was  enduring  the  discipline  of  faith.  All  that 
sharp  trial  of  her  trust  and  of  her  perseverance  was 
necessary;  necessary  for  her,  that  her  faith  might  be 
strengthened,  and  for  the  disciples  who  witnessed  it, 
that  they  might  learn  the  error  and  folly  of  their  Jewsh 
exclusiveness.  And  so,  if  indeed  any  of  us  have  borne 
our  children  on  our  hearts  to  the  mercy-seat  and  cried 
out  for  them  with  something  of  the  fervor  of  this  woman 
of  Canaan,  yet  seemingly  all  in  vain,  let  us  learn  to 
emulate  her  unconquerable  faith;  let  us  grasp  firm  hold, 
as  she  did,  on  the  love  and  mercy  of  God,  and  against 
hope  believe  in  hope,  confident  He  will  give  His  bless- 
ing, rich  and  fuU  and  free,  in  the  end,  though  He  tarry 
long;  let  us  be  sure  there  never  can  be  in  His  provi- 
dence any  save  apparent  departures  from  love  and  ten- 
derness and  sympathy;  let  us  persevere  in  our  inter- 
cessions and  cry  with  Jacob,  when  he  wrestled  with  the 
angel  at  break  of  day,  "I  will  not  let  thee  go  except 
thou  bless  me." 

Only  let  us  leave  the  form  of  the  answer  to  His  wis- 
dom that  cannot  err.  To  the  Syro-Phoenician  He  gave 
the  very  thing  she  asked  for.  To  you  He  may  not  al- 
ways give  just  what  you  desire.  You  may  cry,  "Lord, 
spare  my  child's  life,"  and  He  may  not  spare  it.  It 
may  seem  best  to  Him  to  take  your  child  to  His  own 
school  in  the  better  land;  and  yet  your  prayer  may  be 
heard  and  answered  as  truly  as  if  He  had  given  you  the 
life  for  which  you  prayed. 

O  Christian,  trust  in  Christ!  Trust  His  love.  His 
sympathy,    His   wisdom;   trust   Him   absolutely.    No 


192        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

true  prayer  was  ever  unheard  or  unanswered.  Surely 
it  is  a  great  blessing  to  know  that  He  will  answer  us  only 
in  the  right  time  and  in  the  right  way.  "  All  who  have 
prayed  shall  one  day  justify  God  and  say:  Thy  answer 
is  beyond  my  prayer,  as  Thy  thoughts  and  Thy  ways 
are  beyond  my  thoughts  and  my  ways." 


THE   TENT  PITCHED   TOWARD   SODOM 

FOR  THE  THIRD  SUNDAY  IN  LENT 

"Lot  'pitched  his  tent  toward  Sodom." — Gen.  xiii.  12. 

Lot  had  come  out  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  with  Abraham, 
his  uncle,  his  father's  brother.  The  call  of  God  to  leave 
country  and  kindred  and  home,  in  order  to  enter  on  the 
life  of  faith,  had  come  to  him  also,  and  he  had  obeyed 
and  had  gone  out,  not  knowing  whither  he  went.  He 
had  been  the  companion  of  the  man  who  was  to  become 
the  father  of  the  faithful — the  t}T3e  for  all  ages  of  trust 
in  the  divine  providence  and  obedience  to  the  divine 
call.  Such  companionship  was  full  of  privilege  and 
opportunity  for  the  young  man.  Surely  under  such 
guidance  and  with  such  an  example  daily  before  his 
eyes.  Lot  might  well  have  become  one  of  the  heroes  of 
the  faith,  whose  names  shine  as  stars  in  the  firmament 
of  human  history. 

But,  as  you  know,  the  result  was  different.  The 
name  of  Lot  is  not  one  of  the  great  names  of  the  ancient 
story.  It  finds  no  place  on  the  roll  of  the  worthies  im- 
mortahzed  by  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
He  is  not  named  as  one  of  that  illustrious  company  of 
whom  the  world  was  not  worthy.  No  deed  of  heroism, 
no  achievement  of  faith,  is  associated  with  the  name  of 
Lot.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  name  of  weakness,  and  of 
shame,  as  well  as  of  dire  and  terrible  calamity. 

»93 


194        The  GkDSpel  in  the  Christian  Year 

And  yet  Lot  did  not  actually  apostatize  from  the 
faith  and  service  of  God.  He  remained  relatively  a 
righteous  man  even  in  Sodom.  St.  Peter  tells  us  that 
he  was  ' '  vexed  "  with  the  filthy  lives  of  his  fellow  towns- 
men: "That  righteous  man,  dwelling  among  them,  in 
seeing  and  hearing  vexed  his  righteous  soul  from  day  to 
day  with  their  unlawful  deeds. ' '  So,  when  the  day  of 
Sodom's  doom  arrived  the  Lord  remembered  Abra- 
ham's intercession  and  sent  his  angels  to  bid  Lot  flee 
from  the  guilty  city  ere  the  fire  and  brimstone  de- 
scended upon  it.  But  you  remember  that  even  after 
this  divine  interposition  for  his  deliverance,  and  in  the 
place  of  refuge  provided  for  him,  the  old  man  was  be- 
trayed into  drunkenness,  and  in  his  intoxication  com- 
mitted ignorantly  an  abominable  sin,  which  has  forever 
darkened  his  memory  and  made  the  light  of  his  upright 
life  go  out  in  shame.  The  best,  then,  that  can  be  said  for 
Lot  is  this :  he  was  just  but  not  heroic,  righteous  but  not 
illustrious,  a  man  who  though  not  absolutely  false  to 
his  convictions,  yet  did  no  valiant  service  for  God  and 
the  right.  His  light  never  shone  clear  and  lustrous  be- 
fore men — it  was  dim  and  feeble  and  obscured  by  clouds. 
Not  a  traitor,  not  a  deserter,  he  yet  was  not  a  hero  or  a 
leader.  He  left  no  noble  impress  on  his  age — did  no  deed 
of  valor  in  the  great  contest  for  faith  and  truth.  His  name 
stands  rather  for  weakness  and  failure,  and  for  meanness 
rather  than  for  magnanimity.  That  is  the  very  best 
that  can  be  said  of  him. 

But  there  is  another  and  a  less  favorable  view,  which 
is  truer  to  all  the  facts  of  his  hfe.  According  to  that. 
Lot  is  an  example  of  a  man  whose  character,  after 
a  certain  point,  began  to  deteriorate.  He  did  not 
actually  apostatize,  but  his  faith  kept  growing  weaker 


The  Tent  Pitched  Toward  Sodom         195 

the  light  of  his  example  first  flickered,  then  grew  fainter 
and  fainter,  till  it  went  out  in  darkness.  The  man 
plainly  degenerated.  It  would  seem  that  he  had  fallen 
into  the  habit  of  drinking  to  excess,  and  this  at  last 
plunged  him  into  unspeakable  shame  and  into  a  dis- 
honored grave. 

Now,  w^hat  is  the  explanation  of  the  moral  and  relig- 
ious failure  which  this  man's  life  presents?  How  did  it 
come  to  pass  that  he  who  began  so  well  ended  so  badly? 
Can  we  trace  his  deterioration  to  its  source? 

I  think  we  can.  The  incident  recorded  in  my  text 
furnishes,  I  beUeve,  the  key  to  his  whole  subsequent 
history,  with  its  failures,  its  mortifications,  its  sins,  and 
its  disastrous  termination.  "  Lot  pitched  his  tent  toward 
Sodom."  That  is  the  brief  record  of  an  apparently  un- 
important fact;  yet  when  we  consider  it  in  the  light  of 
what  had  previously  transpired,  we  see  that  it  reveals 
the  secret  of  Lot's  character  and  marks  the  first  step  in 
his  moral  and  spiritual  decline. 

The  circumstances  were  these:  Abram  and  Lot  had 
both  prospered.  They  had  grown  rich  in  flocks  and 
herds,  in  silver  and  gold.  They  were  affectionately 
attached  to  each  other,  but  their  herdsmen  quarrelled, 
and  the  quarrel  was  so  serious  that  it  was  plain  they  could 
no  longer  dwell  together — they  must  separate.  So 
Abram  said  unto  Lot,  "Let  there  be  no  strife,  I  pray 
thee,  between  me  and  thee,  and  between  my  herdsmen 
and  thy  herdsmen ;  for  we  be  brethren.  Is  not  the  whole 
land  before  thee?  Separate  thyself,  I  pray  thee,  from 
me;  if  thou  wilt  take  the  left  hand,  then  I  will  go  to  the 
right ;  or  if  thou  depart  to  the  right  hand,  then  I  will  go 
to  the  left."  Thus  Abram,  with  noble  magnanimity, 
i  gave  Lot,  his  nephew,  his  junior,  and  in  that  patriarchal 


196         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

society  his  inferior,  tlie  first  choice.  And  Lot  was  mean 
enough  and  selfish  enough  to  take  it!  This  is  the  record : 
"  And  Lot  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and  beheld  all  the  plain  of 
Jordan,  that  it  was  well  watered  everywhere — even  as 
the  garden  of  the  Lord.  Then  Lot  chose  him  all  the 
plain  of  Jordan,  and  Lot  journeyed  east .  .  .  and  pitched 
his  tent  toward  Sodom." 

It  was  this  fatal  choice  that  determined  the  failure  of 
Lot's  life  and  the  deterioration  of  his  character. 

In  the  first  place  it  was  a  mean  and  selfish  thing  for 
Lot  to  accept  grand  old  Abram's  act  of  renunciation, 
whereby  he  gave  him  the  first  choice  of  the  land.  He 
was  selfish  before,  but  when  he  did  this  his  selfishness 
took  a  great  stride  towards  complete  control  of  his  char- 
acter. Then  it  was  a  worldly  choice;  it  was  governed 
wholly  by  considerations  of  worldly  advantage.  The 
land  was  rich  and  fertile  and  beautiful.  It  promised 
him  greater  wealth  and  greater  pleasure  and  greater 
hixury.  And  so  he  chose  it,  never  stopping  to  con- 
sider the  moral  atmosphere  of  the  country  he  proposed 
to  make  his  home,  never  asking  himself  whether  he 
would  be  exposed  to  peculiar  temptations  there,  whether 
his  neighbors  would  be  morally  good  or  morally  de- 
praved, and  whether  it  would  be  a  good  place  to  bring 
up  his  children  in.  Nay,  worse  than  this:  he  knew 
that  the  moral  environment  of  life  in  that  fascinating 
and  beautiful  plain  of  the  Jordan  was  as  bad  as  bad  could 
be,  for  it  was  notorious  "  that  the  men  of  Sodom  were 
wicked  and  sinners  before  the  Lord  exceedingly."  Yet, 
with  this  fact  before  his  eyes,  with  all  that  it  implied 
of  temptation  and  moral  contagion,  Lot  deliberately 
made  the  choice;  made  it  from  purely  worldly  consid- 
erations;  made  it  not  as  a  man  of  faith  but  as  a  man 


The  Tent  Pitched  Toward  Sodom         197 

ambitious  to  be  rich:  and  proceeded  to  pitch  his  tent 
"  toward  Sodom."     What  was  the  result? 

He  gradually  fell  under  the  spell  of  the  wicked  and 
luxurious  city.  It  fascinated  him.  It  drew  him  and 
his  to  its  fatal  embrace.  And  so  it  was  not  very  long 
before  he  abandoned  the  simple  life  of  a  great  sheik  in 
the  midst  of  his  herds  and  his  herdsmen,  and  moved  to 
town — became  a  citizen  of  Sodom. 

You  see  at  first  he  only  pitched  his  tent  in  that  direc- 
tion— "  toward  Sodom  " — but  now  he  enters  into  Sodom, 
builds  him  a  house,  and  takes  up  his  abode  there.  We 
are  told  by  St.  Peter  that  he  was  grieved  and  scandalized 
by  the  filthy  morals  of  the  Sodomites.  His  righteous 
soul  was  vexed  from  day  to  day  with  their  unlawful 
deeds.  Nevertheless  he  continued  to  live  there,  content 
to  breathe  its  foul  moral  atmosphere,  and  to  bring  up  his 
children  there,  though  he  must  have  realized  that  they 
could  not  escape  its  contagion.  In  fact  he  was  so 
wedded  to  Sodom  that  even  after  he  had  been  carried 
away  captive  by  the  army  of  Chedorlaomer,  and  rescued 
by  his  uncle  Abram,  he  resumed  his  residence  there,  and 
could  hardly  be  persuaded  by  the  angels  of  deliverance 
to  leave  it,  when  its  destruction  had  been  determined. 

And  how  disastrous  were  the  consequences,  both  upon 
himself  and  upon  his  family,  for  his  long  residence  in  such 
a  place — a  city  "  full  of  corruption  which  may  not  be  so 
much  as  named;  every  home  a  den  of  unclean  beasts; 
every  imagination  debauched  and  drunk  with  iniquity; 
every  tongue  an  empoisoned  instrument;  purity,  love, 
honor,  peace,  forgotten  or  detested  words;  judgment 
deposed,  righteousness  banished,  the  sanctuary  aban- 
doned, the  altar  destroyed." 

Lot's  children  became  infected  with  the  wickedness 


1 98        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

and  debauchery  which  they  daily  breathed.  Some  of 
his  daughters  made  alHances  with  citizens  of  Sodom, 
and  perished  with  their  husbands  in  the  great  day  of  its 
destruction.  The  remaining  two  escaped  the  fire  and 
brimstone  only  to  commit  unspeakable  wickedness  after 
their  deliverance;  while  Lot  himself,  now  grown  to  be 
an  old  man,  had  fallen  from  one  act  of  unbelief  to  another, 
until  he  stands  before  us  in  the  last  chapter  of  his  life 
a  dishonored  man,  clinging  almost  desperately  to  the 
remnant  of  his  faith  and  of  his  righteousness,  yet  the 
victim  of  doubt  and  fear,  all  spiritual  virility  gone, 
addicted  to  intoxication,  a  pitiful  example  of  the  decay 
of  character  and  the  echpse  of  faith. 

My  brethren,  this  story  of  Lot  is  full  of  instruction 
for  us  from  several  points  of  view.  Let  me  ask  you 
this  morning  to  consider  it  as  an  example  of  the  con- 
trolling influence  exerted  over  a  man's  destiny  and 
character  by  the  direction  of  his  life.  "  Lot  pitched  his 
tent  toward  Sodom";  and  that  fatal  decision  it  was 
which  undermined  his  religious  character  and  brought 
moral  disaster  upon  him  and  his. 

1.  Now  the  first  application  I  suggest  of  the  lesson 
here  taught  is  to  those  critical  occasions  in  life  when 
we  are  face  to  face  with  some  important  decision  which 
must  be  made,  for  ourselves,  or  for  those  dependent  on 
us.  It  may  be  the  choice  of  a  career;  it  may  be  the 
selection  of  a  home;  it  may  be  some  important  business 
enterprise  in  which  we  are  solicited  to  enter;  it  may  be 
some  political  policy  we  are  urged  to  advocate  or  sup- 
port; it  may  be  the  choosing  of  a  school  for  a  son  or 
daughter,  or  a  tutor  or  a  travelling  companion  for  our 
children.  At  such  times  of  serious  decision  Christian 
men  and  women  may  take  warning  by  the  example  of 


The  Tent  Pitched  Toward  Sodom         199 

Lot.  He  was  a  righteous  man  and  a  sincere  servant  of 
God,  but,  at  the  critical  moment  of  his  hfe,  he  made  a 
fatal  choice,  and  he  made  it  because  he  based  his  action 
upon  wholly  worldly  principles  —  upon  considerations 
of  material  advantage  —  the  increase  of  his  wealth 
and  the  ease  and  luxuriousness  of  the  life  that  offered 
itself.  We  will  do  well,  my  dear  friends,  to  beware  of 
follownng  in  his  footsteps.  In  all  the  serious  issues  of 
life  wc  should  not  ask  merely,  Will  it  pay?  Will  it  be 
to  my  worldly  advantage?  Will  it  contribute  to  my 
advancement?  Will  it  give  me  an  easy  life?  Will  it  open 
for  me,  or  for  my  children,  a  distinguished  career?  Will 
it  gratify  my  social  or  political  ambition? 

Ah,  these  are  all  purely  worldly  motives  of  action.  A 
Christian  man  ought  to  look  higher  and  farther.  To 
him  there  should  be  nobler  motives — more  exalted  con- 
siderations! What  course  of  conduct  will  God  approve? 
In  which  career  will  I  be  most  useful  to  the  world? 
Which  home  will  most  conduce  to  the  purity  of  my 
household?  Which  school  will  give  my  children  the 
best  moral  and  reUgious  training?  Which  poUtical 
poUcy  is  most  conformable  to  righteousness  and  human- 
ity and  good  faith?  Is  this  business  enterprise,  which 
is  so  alluring  in  its  promise  of  gain,  absolutely  honorable, 
and  free  from  any  taint  of  wrong? 

Believe  me,  Christian  people,  these,  and  not  the  lower 
motives,  should  decide  our  choice,  lest  we  pitch  our  tent 
toward  Sodom — Sodom,  with  its  wealth  and  its  wicked- 
ness— Sodom,  with  its  luxury  and    its    lust — Sodom 
with  its  imgodliness  and  evil    companionship — Sodom 
with  its  delusive  prosperity  and  its  terrible  doom ! 

2.  Another  application  of  the  lesson  of  our  text  sug- 
gests itself.     Many  a  Christian  man's  home  is  Uke  Lot's 


200         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

tent,  ''pitched  toward  Sodom."  The  owner  of  the  tent 
is  not  a  citizen  of  Sodom,  but  of  Jerusalem.  He  owes 
no  allegiance  to  the  wicked  city  of  the  plain.  He  has  no 
desire  or  intention  of  abandoning  his  rights  or  his 
liberties  in  the  city  of  God.  The  banner  of  the  Cross 
still  floats  over  his  tent,  and  he  means  it  always  shall. 

Yet,  if  you  look  well,  you  will  see  that  his  tent  is 
pitched  toward  Sodom.  His  eyes  have  been  ravished 
by  the  beauty  and  the  fertility  of  the  plain  in  which 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  are  situated,  and  he  has  made  up 
his  mind  to  cast  in  his  lot  in  that  well-watered  and  fruit- 
ful region,  though  he  will  by  no  means  enter  those 
dissolute  cities  or  take  up  his  abode  there. 

Yes,  my  brethren,  we  see  it  every  day — the  tents  of 
Christian  men  pitched  toward  Sodom  and  not  toward 
Jerusalem — their  homes  ordered  and  regulated  by  the 
principles  and  policies  and  maxims  and  customs  of  the 
world,  and  not  after  Christ. 

The  heads  of  these  households,  like  Lot,  are  professed 
servants  of  God,  and,  like  him,  they  mean  to  be  loyal  in 
their  allegiance;  and  yet,  somehow,  the  outlook  from 
their  tent-door  is  not  toward  Jerusalem.  They  have 
looked  toward  the  plain,  and  its  fertility  and  beauty 
have  fascinated  them.  The  world  and  its  art,  the  world 
and  its  culture,  the  world  and  its  social  delights,  the 
world  and  its  luxurious  living,  has  charmed  them,  and 
they  have  resolved  to  enjoy  it;  not  wickedly — no!  no! — 
innocently,  without  doing  wrong  to  any,  without  yield- 
ing to  the  vices  or  the  corrupt  manners  which  many 
indulge  in.  Their  tents  are  indeed  '  *  pitched  toward 
Sodom,"  but  they  have  no  intention  of  entering  within 
its  walls,  or  dwelling  therein,  much  less  of  becoming 
citizens  thereof. 


The  Tent  Pitched  Toward  Sodom         201 

Ah,  but  Sodom  has  a  strange  power  of  seduction.  She 
attracts — she  fascinates — she  conquers.  Lot  found  it 
out.  It  was  too  strong  for  him.  And  many  a  Christian 
man  has  a  similar  experience. 

The  alarming  circumstance  is  that  the  whole  direction 
and  trend  of  these  Christian  households  is  worldward 
and  not  God  ward.  You  seek  in  vain  for  any  distinctive 
Christian  feature  in  their  ideals,  in  their  habits,  in  their 
whole  internal  economy.  There  is  no  family  altar! 
There  is  no  family  Bible,  at  least  none  in  use!  The 
Lord's  day  is  not  kept  hoh'^!  The  theatre  is  patronized 
indiscriminately,  irrespective  of  the  morality  or  im- 
morality of  the  particular  play  that  is  witnessed!  The 
cliildren  are  distinctly  not  trained  up  in  the  nurture  and 
admonition  of  the  Lord ! 

3.  If  time  allowed  I  might  point  out  how  oftentimes 
we  see  a  Christian  man's  business  so  ordered,  so  con- 
ducted, that  we  can  only  compare  it  to  Lot's  tent  which 
was  "  pitched  toward  Sodom."  Not  that  the  servant 
of  God  has  yet  adopted  the  methods  of  business  that 
prevail  in  Sodom,  but  that  his  methods  tend  in  that 
direction.  He  seems  to  have  ceased  to  make  the  effort 
to  order  his  worldly  affairs  on  Christian  principles.  He 
has  apparently  accepted  the  maxim  that  in  business  you 
must  follow  the  ways  of  the  world.  Accordingly  there 
has  been  a  divorce  between  his  reUgion  and  his  business. 
The  two  have  ceased  to  come  in  contact.  He  turns 
toward  Jerusalem  when  he  says  his  prayers,  but  when 
it  comes  to  business  his  tent  is  pitched  toward  Sodom! 

4.  But  leaving  this  I  pass  to  that  which  lies  at  the 
root  and  the  heart  of  all  these  phases  of  life's  activities, 
I  mean  the  inner  life,  the  moving  desires,  the  control- 
ling purposes  of  Christian  men.     And  of  this  inner  life 


202         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

we  are  bound  to  say  that  too  often  it  is  Hke  Lot's  tent 
in  the  plain  of  Jordan,  "  pitched  toward  Sodom." 

There  is  no  definite  apostasy  from  God,  there  is  no 
conscious  hypocrisy.  The  man  still  means  to  be  loyal 
to  his  Master.  And  yet,  almost  without  knowing  it, 
perhaps,  his  heart  has  gone  after  the  beauty,  or  the  fer- 
tility, or  the  delights  of  the  plain,  with  the  result  that  the 
direction  of  his  thoughts,  of  his  affections,  of  his  energies, 
is  toward  Sodom — the  Sodom  of  self-indulgence,  the 
Sodom  of  ambition,  the  Sodom  of  social  success,  the 
Sodom  of  luxurious,  even  unlawful  living. 

It  is  only  a  tendenc}^  only  an  inclination,  only  a  trend 
of  the  thoughts  and  the  affections,  but  it  means  that  the 
man's  tent  is  no  longer  pitched  toward  Jerusalem  and  the 
heavenly  hills,  but  toward  Sodom  and  the  fertile,  lux- 
uriant plain.  It  means  that  he  is  not  "  seeking  first  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness,"  but  that  this 
supreme  aim  has  dropped  into  a  secondary  place,  and 
that  the  things  of  the  world,  the  things  of  the  senses,  the 
things  of  the  imagination,  are  usurping  control  over  the 
inner  man. 

And  we  cannot  forget  that  it  is  the  aim,  the  outlook, 
the  direction  of  the  energies  and  aspirations  that  in  the 
ultimate  analysis  determine  character  and  destiny. 
When  Lot  pitched  his  tent  toward  Sodom  the  life  of 
faith,  which  he  had  learned  to  live  with  faithful  Abra- 
ham, began  to  be  eclipsed,  and  though  the  eclipse  was 
slow  it  was  sure.  It  became  total  many,  many  years 
afterward,  when  Lot  was  an  old  man,  a  fugitive  from 
Sodom — a  fugitive  again  from  Zoar — in  the  mountain 
of  his  sin  and  shame. 

Let  me  in   conclusion   press   upon   every  Christian 


The  Tent  Pitched  Toward  Sodom         203 

man  and  woman  the  question,  What  is  the  outlook  of 
your  inner  life?  Is  your  tent  pitched  toward  Jerusalem 
or  toward  Sodom? 

Sodom  stands  for  material  good,  material  objects  of 
desire,  material  indulgence;  for  worldly  success,  worldly 
possessions,  worldly  triumphs — for  these  things  I  say, 
as  well  as  for  the  grosser  sins  of  the  flesh.  Jerusalem 
stands  for  the  unseen  things  of  the  Spirit,  for  virtue,  for 
truth,  for  charity,  for  moral  self-conquest,  for  the  Christ- 
Uke  spirit,  for  the  Christlike  hfe,  for  the  joy  and  peace 
of  the  gospel,  for  the  approval  of  God  and  conscience, 
for  the  heavenly  reward  and  the  heavenly  inheritance. 

Of  what  profound  moment,  then,  for  every  one  of  us, 
is  the  question  toward  which  of  these  cities — the  heav- 
enly or  the  earthly — is  our  tent  pitched?  Is  it  toward 
Jerusalem,  the  eternal  city,  the  city  of  God,  the  home 
of  God's  elect — or  is  it  toward  Sodom,  the  city  of  de- 
struction, the  city  of  doom? 

It  must  be  toward  one  or  the  other.  It  cannot  be 
toward  both.  We  cannot  pitch  our  tent  toward  Jeru- 
salem on  Sunday  and  toward  Sodom  on  Monday.  The 
unities  of  human  nature  forbid  that.  We  cannot  make 
Abraham's  choice,  the  life  of  faith,  and  Lot's  choice,  the 
life  of  ease,  in  one  and  the  same  breath.  No,  we  must 
choose  between  them,  God  help  us  to  choose  wisely, 
more  wisely  than  did  unhappy  Lot,  who  chose  the  por- 
tion of  worldly  pleasure  and  worldly  wealth,  in  the  well- 
watered  plain  of  Sodom,  meaning  to  serve  God  and 
Mammon  at  the  same  time.  Alas,  too  late  he  found  his 
mistake.  The  gold  turned  to  dross  in  his  hands.  All 
his  riches  perished  in  the  rain  of  fire  and  brimstone. 
Wife  and  children  were  lost.  All  was  lost.  And  faith 
and  hope  perished  with  them. 


THE   FIVE  LOAVES   AND    THE   TWO    SMALL 
FISHES 

FOR  THE  FOURTH  SUNDAY  IN  LENT 

"  There  is  a  lad  here  which  hath  five  barley  loaves  and  two  small 
fishes;  but  what  are  they  among  so  many  ?" — John  vi.  9. 

Weary  with  the  exacting  labors  of  ministering  to 
the  people — "there  were  many  coming  and  going,"  says 
the  narrative,  "and  they  had  no  leisure  so  much  as  to 
eat" — Jesus  had  called  His  disciples  apart  into  a  soli- 
tary place  for  rest  and  refreshment.  But  He  could  not 
be  hid.  The  people  discovered  His  place  of  retirement 
and  followed  Him  out  of  the  cities.  And  not  in  vain; 
for  the  evangelist  tells  us  "  He  received  them  and  be- 
gan to  teach  them  many  things,  and  healed  them  that 
had  need  of  heahng."  Then  follows  the  beautiful  story 
told  in  the  gospel  for  the  day,  of  the  feeding  of  the  five 
thousand  in  the  wilderness.  It  is  noteworthy  as  the 
only  event  in  our  Lord's  life,  previous  to  His  last  visit 
to  Jerusalem,  which  is  recorded  by  all  four  evangelists 
alike;  and  not  without  reason,  for  it  is  in  many  respects 
one  of  the  most  impressive  and  significant  of  all  the 
scenes  preserved  for  us  on  the  canvas  of  the  sacred 
historian. 

What  a  picture  it  is !  A  desert  place  at  the  foot  of  a 
mountain,  the  light  of  the  far-spent  day  falling  upon 
the  figure  of  Jesus,  who  looks  with  eyes  of  compassion 

204 


The  Five  Loaves  and  the  Two  Small  Fishes  205 

on  the  upturned  faces  of  a  vast  multitude  before  Him 
the  twelve  disciples,  who  have  vainly  urged  Him  to  send 
the  multitudes  away,  now  moving  from  group  to  group 
distributing  the  bread  and  the  fish  to  the  famishing 
people;  while  in  the  background  one  sees  the  little  lad 
whose  five  barley  loaves  and  two  small  fishes  have 
been  so  wonderfully  multiplied,  radiant  with  the  joyful 
light  of  his  unconscious  self-sacrifice. 

It  is  a  picture  for  all  time,  telling  every  beholder  the 
wondrous  story  of  Jesus  and  His  compassion,  Jesus  and 
His  love,  Jesus  and  His  power  to  help.  What  could 
more  fitly  represent  the  need,  the  piteous  need  of  our 
race,  benighted  in  the  wilderness  and  famishing  for 
spiritual  food,  than  that  multitude  there  in  the  desert 
place,  overtaken  by  the  fast-gathering  darkness  and 
faint  from  hunger.  And  what  could  express  more  viv- 
idly what  Jesus  the  Christ  is  doing  for  mankind  than 
that  picture  of  Him  standing  amid  the  multitudes,  with 
such  infinite  compassion  on  His  face,  and  breaking  the 
bread  to  stay  their  hunger! 

To  one  feature  only  in  this  wonderful  picture  I  desire 
to  draw  your  attention  this  morning.  I  would  ask  you 
to  notice  the  means  Jesus  employed,  the  instrument 
He  used  when  He  answered  the  dumb  cry  of  the  fam- 
ishing people  for  help.  Moses  gave  Israel  manna  from 
heaven.  Jesus  feeds  the  multitude  out  of  the  store  of 
one  of  their  own  number.  He  commands  His  disciples 
to  feed  them :  "  Give  ye  them  to  eat."  Impossible !  They 
have  no  food  sufficient  for  such  a  number,  nor  can  they 
buy  bread  in  the  wilderness.  They  had,  indeed,  found 
among  them  a  lad  who  had  in  his  wallet  five  barley 
loaves  and  two  small  fishes.  "But  what  are  they 
among  so  many?"     "Make  the  men  sit  down,"  is  His 


2o6         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

reply,  and  He  "took  the  loaves  and,  when  He  had  given 
thanks,  He  distributed  to  the  disciples,  and  the  disciples 
to  them  that  were  set  down;  and  likewise  of  the  fishes 
as  much  as  they  would." 

Two  great  principles  of  the  kingdom  of  God  emerge 
here :  first,  Christ  seeks  and  uses  human  instrumentality 
in  helping  and  blessing  the  world ;  and,  second,  it  pleases 
Him  oftentimes  to  use  the  feeblest  instruments  in  the 
accomplishment  of  His  purposes.  Let  us  think  of 
these  two  principles  this  morning. 

I.  It  is,  I  think,  a  striking  and  instructive  circum- 
stance that,  instead  of  creating  bread  out  of  nothing, 
or  calling  down  manna  from  heaven  as  Moses  did,  Christ 
called  upon  the  disciples  to  produce  what  store  of  bread 
they  had  and  give  it  to  Him  that  He  might  therewith 
feed  the  hungry  multitudes.  It  means,  my  brethren, 
that  in  His  work  of  helping  and  saving  the  world  He 
will  use  the  hands  and  hearts  and  brains  of  men.  It  is 
a  part  of  His  all-wise  economy.  Man  must  as  a  rule 
receive  salvation  from  the  hand  of  his  fellow  man. 
When  God  would  save  mankind  He  did  it  "by  way  of 
a  Man" — the  Man  Christ  Jesus.  And  when  He,  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,  comes  to  save  He  uses  men  as  His 
instruments.  He  asks  for  the  lad's  barley  loaves  and 
fishes  to  feed  the  multitude  there  in  the  wilderness  be- 
cause He  would  teach  them,  and  teach  the  whole  world, 
that  He  means  to  save  men  by  human  instrumentality. 
Human  love,  human  sympathy,  human  talents,  human 
energy,  consecrated  to  Christ  and  to  mankind — this  is 
the  divine  economy  of  salvation,  this  the  method  of 
realizing  the  kingdom  of  God  among  men. 

I  said  that  picture  of  Christ  feeding  the  five  thousand 
was  for  all  time.     Yes,  it  is  for  our  time  and  for  us;  and 


The  Five  Loaves  and  the  Two  Small  Fishes  207 

it  shows  us  Christ  pointing  to  the  famishing  multitudes 
and  saying  to  His  disciples:  "Give  ye  them  to  eat."  We 
may  not  forget  that  this  precept  has  a  literal  meaning, 
that  it  is  a  command  to  give  bread  to  the  hungry;  but 
this  hteral  meaning  is  the  lowest  and  the  least  impor- 
tant. In  its  deeper  sense  it  is  a  command  to  minister 
to  the  soul-hunger  of  the  multitudes  who  are  scattered 
abroad,  as  sheep  having  no  shepherd.  It  is  true  that 
only  Christ  can  save  them;  only  Christ  can  give  them 
the  bread  of  Ufe;  only  Christ  can  stay  the  hunger  and 
fill  the  longing  of  the  soul  of  man.  And  yet  it  is  also 
true  that  He  calls  upon  us,  His  disciples,  to  be  His  in- 
struments in  His  work.  "Give  ye  them  to  eat,''  He  says. 
He  associates  us  with  Himself  in  this  divine  work  of 
filling  the  spiritual  needs  of  the  world,  y,  He  lays  upon 
us  a  part  of  the  responsibility;  He  bestows  upon  us  a 
part  of  the  privilege  of  shepherding  and  feeding  the 
multitude.  It  is  only  another  presentation  of  the 
truth  clothed  elsewhere  in  different  imagery:  "Ye  are 
the  salt  of  the  earth;  ye  are  the  light  of  the  world." 

I  fear  we  are  not  in  the  habit  of  so  regarding  our 
position  and  our  responsibility.  Practically  we  rather 
live  on  the  theory  that  each  man  is  responsible  for  his 
own  soul  and  for  that  alone.  We  get  as  far  as  to  ask 
"  What  must  I  do  to  he  saved  ?  "  But  we  fail  to  see  that 
the  next  question,  and  one  which  must  follow  upon  the 
right  answer  to  the  first,  is  "  What  can  I  do  to  save 
others  ?  "  The  two  are  Hnked  together  by  an  immutable 
law,  as  the  root  and  the  tree,  as  the  flower  and  the  fruit, 
as  the  seed-wheat  and  the  harvest.  Whether  we  will 
or  no  we  stand,  each  one,  in  this  relation  of  responsi- 
bility and  opportunity,  and  we  cannot  evade  it.  "No 
man  liveth  to  himself."     No  man  can  isolate  himself 


2o8        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year  < 

from  relation  to  his  fellow  men.  Nor  may  any  man 
dare  repeat  "Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?" 

"  Guilt's  maiden  speech  when  first  a  man  lay  slain." 

For  there  stands  the  figure  of  Christ  in  the  wilderness, 
pointing  to  the  multitude  and  saying  to  us,  His  disciples, 
"  Give  ye  them  to  eat." 

Now  it  is  not  only  because  we  are  unwilling  to  accept 
our  responsibility  that  we  neglect  it,  but  largely,  I  be- 
have, because  we  do  not  recognize  our  power  or  realize 
our  opportunity — this  is  perhaps  the  strongest  cause 
of  our  selfish  neglect.  And,  therefore,  I  want  to  ac- 
centuate and  emphasize  to-day  this  wonderful  fact  that 
shines  out  from  the  study  we  have  been  making  of  the 
gospel  picture — I  mean  that  Christ  has  need  of  us  in 
His  great  work  of  ministering  to  the  soul-needs  of  the 
world;  that  each  of  us,  no  matter  who  or  what  he  may 
be,  has  something  he  can  give  to  Christ,  which  He  can 
transmute  by  the  alchemy  of  His  divine  power  into  the 
bread  of  life  for  hungry  souls. 

Is  it  not  true,  my  brethren?  If  you  really  believed 
that  the  great,  compassionate  Christ,  Saviour  and  helper 
of  men,  had  need  of  your  help  in  His  work  among  men 
— that  there  was  something  you  could  give  Him  which 
in  His  hands  would  be  a  boon  and  a  blessing  to  men, 
would  you  withhold  it?  Would  you  not  rather  eagerly 
give  it?  Would  it  not  be  a  joy  and  an  inspiration  to 
you  to  feel  that  you  could  indeed  have  part  in  His  divine 
work  of  healing  and  helping  mankind? 

But  this  is  precisely  the  truth  that  is  taught  us  here. 
We  miss  it  or  we  lose  hold  of  it  because  of  its  very 
greatness  and  marvellousness.  It  is  too  good,  too  great, 
to  be  true  that  such  a  privilege  is  indeed  offered  to  us! 


The  Five  Loaves  and  the  Two  Small  Fishes  209 

II.  This  naturally  leads  me  to  speak  of  the  second  of 
the  truths  which  our  text  suggests,  namely,  that  it 
pleases  Christ  oftentimes  to  use  the  feeblest  instru- 
ments in  the  accomplishment  of  His  purposes.  If  time 
allowed,  this  statement  could  be  illustrated  by  many 
examples;  a  few  must  suffice,  however,  and  they  shall 
be  taken  from  recent  history.  Think  of  Robert  Raikes, 
the  son  of  a  printer,  poor  and  obscure,  who  founded  the 
Sunday-school  Httle  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago. 
Think  of  John  Howard,  the  grocer's  apprentice,  whose 
name  is  to-day  the  synonym  of  philanthropy  and  re- 
form. Think  of  George  Miiller,  whose  orphanages  have 
been  the  wonder  of  our  generation,  and  who,  poor  and 
unknown,  without  conspicuous  abihty  of  any  kind, 
wrought  his  great  work  for  the  world  solely  by  faith  and 
prayer.  Think  of  John  Falk,  the  contemporary  and 
friend  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  and  Herder  in  that  bril- 
liant circle  at  Weimar;  he  was  a  man  of  letters,  a  poet 
and  a  prose  ^\Titer,  but  not  very  successful  in  either 
province — in  fact  was  pointed  at  in  the  first  decade  of 
this  century  as  "  a  type  of  the  national  hterature  in  de- 
cay"; but  in  middle  life  he  found  his  true  vocation. 
"Moulded  in  the  fire  of  affliction,  and  prepared  in  the 
valley  of  tears,"  to  use  his  own  language,  he  conse- 
crated himself  to  the  work  of  saving  abandoned  and 
criminal  children,  and  he  is  known  to-day  in  Germany 
as  the  father  of  one  of  the  most  blessed  of  all  the  types 
of  modern  charitable  enterprises — I  mean  the  reforma- 
tory school. 

But  to  return  to  the  gospel  story.  It  was  not  one 
of  the  twelve  apostles,  it  was  not  one  of  the  rabbis  or 
the  priests  that  furnished  the  food  for  the  multitude: 
it  was  a  little  lad  of  whom  nothing  has  come  down  to 


2IO        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

us,  not  even  his  name.  And  what  had  he  to  offer? 
Only  five  loaves  of  bread — barley  bread,  the  food  of 
the  poor — and  two  small  fishes!  That  was  all  to  sat- 
isfy a  hungry  multitude  of  five  thousand  men!  No 
wonder  the  faithless  disciple  added,  "But  what  are  they 
among  so  many?"  Yet  in  the  omnipotent,  creative 
hands  of  Jesus  Christ  they  were  all-sufficient,  and  more, 
for  the  wants  of  all. 

Nothing  could  have  taught  more  clearly  the  lesson 
that  even  the  weakest  and  most  obscure  and  least  con- 
sidered among  the  disciples  of  Christ  may  take  part  in 
His  great  world-saving  work — that  none  must  feel  him- 
self too  little  or  too  poor  to  give  something  to  Christ  to 
bless  and  sanctify  for  the  good  of  mankind. 

We  can  picture  the  astonishment  on  the  face  of  that 
young  lad  when  the  great  Prophet  and  Teacher  asked 
for  his  barley  loaves  and  his  fishes ;  and  then  his  amazed 
delight  when  he  saw  Jesus  bless  them  and  distribute 
them  among  so  great  a  multitude,  and  reahzed  that  his 
little  store  so  freely  given  had  actually  fed  five  thou- 
sand famishing  men. 

But  was  he  more  amazed  than  some  of  you  to  whom 
I  speak  would  be  if  some  messenger  of  God  came  to  you, 
as  St.  Andrew  did  to  the  little  lad,  and  told  you  that  the 
Son  of  God  wanted  your  help  in  His  great  work  of  feed- 
ing hungry  and  famishing  souls  in  this  wilderness  world? 
that  you  had  something  to  give  Him  which,  in  His 
hands  and  by  His  omnipotent  grace,  would  become  the 
very  bread  of  life  to  some  weary,  fainting  soul? 

And  yet  surely  this  is  true!  I  dare  say  to  the  fee- 
blest Christian  here — the  poorest,  the  least  influential, 
the  least  talented,  the  least  gifted,  the  most  ill-educated 
— Jesus  Christ  has  need  of  you;  you  can  help  Him  in 


The  Five  Loaves  and  the  Two  Small  Fishes  211 

His  work  for  men;  you  have  something  to  offer  Him 
which  He  wants  and  which  He  can  multiply  and  glorify 
for  the  use  and  the  good  of  the  world.  It  may  be  no 
more  than  the  five  barley  loaves  and  the  two  small 
fishes;  but  if  you  offer  it  willingly  and  freely  and  in 
faith  He  will  accept  it  and  use  it  in  His  work  and  in  His 
kingdom,  and  by  and  by  yours  shall  be  a  joy  like  the 
joy  of  the  lad  in  the  gospel  story  when  he  saw  the  mul- 
titudes fed  with  the  small  store  of  provision  he  had 
freely  consecrated  to  the  Master. 

But  you  ask  me,  What  have  7  to  offer?  What  can  I 
bring  and  lay  at  His  feet  and  dare  hope  He  can  use  for 
the  help  of  the  world? 

Before  I  try  to  answer  that  question  let  me  say  there 
is  something  that  must  go  before  your  offering.  You 
must  be  in  sympathy  with  Jesus  Christ.  To  some  ex- 
tent you  must  see  with  His  eyes,  and  hear  with  His  ears, 
and  think  with  His  mind.  Your  heart  must  respond 
in  some  measure  to  His  great  purpose  of  uphfting  and 
heaHng  the  world.  Its  poverty,  its  sorrow,  its  blind- 
ness, its  sin,  its  soul-hunger  must  move  you  to  com- 
passion even  as  He  was  moved  when  He  saw  the  mul- 
titude there  in  the  wilderness,  "scattered  abroad  as 
sheep  ha\dng  no  shepherd."  But  this  harmony  with 
Christ's  mission  once  established,  the  answer  to  your 
question  will  be  eas5^  What  have  you  to  offer  Christ 
which  He  may  use,  as  He  used  the  barley  loaves,  in 
feeding  the  multitude?  Ah!  bring  Him  your  gift  of 
human  sympathy  that  He  may  touch  it  and  conse- 
crate it  to  Christlike  uses  in  your  intercourse  with  men 
— among  the  sick  and  the  poor  and  the  needy,  among 
the  sorrow-burdened  and  the  soul-weary  and  the  lonety 
ones.     Bring  Him  whatever  gifts  or  talents  you  pos- 


212         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

sess,  no  matter  how  small  and  mean  they  seem,  and 
ask  Him  to  take  them  into  His  holy  hands  and  multi- 
ply them  and  hallow  them  for  the  uses  of  mercy  and 
charity.  Bring  Him  your  personality  and  ask  Him  to 
touch  it  with  His  grace  and  make  it  a  vessel  meet  for 
His  use.  There  is  no  mirror  of  the  divine  nature  like 
the  manhood  of  Jesus  Christ.  And  there  is  nothing 
that  so  mirrors  to  men  the  character  of  Jesus  as  a  Christ- 
like man.  A  manhood  or  womanhood  that  is  touched 
by  the  Spirit  of  Christ  becomes  a  witness  of  Christ  in 
the  world ;  it  testifies  of  Christ ;  it  represents  Christ ;  in 
its  measure  it  incarnates  Christ. 

I  say,  then,  bring  Him  your  manhood  or  your  wom- 
anhood, and  ask  Him  to  touch  it  and  hallow  it  and 
transfigure  it,  and  then  your  presence,  your  personal- 
ity, will  become  an  unconscious,  but  vital,  influence 
for  the  blessing  of  the  world.  It  will  be  as  the  bread 
in  the  hands  of  Christ  whereby  He  fed  the  people  when 
they  were  ready  to  perish.  And  all  this  is  true  of  men 
and  women  of  common  mould,  who  have  no  remark- 
able talent  or  ability,  and  who  have  not  had,  perhaps, 
many  advantages — the  people  who  have  nothing  to 
offer  the  great  Prophet  and  Teacher  of  men  save  the 
barley  loaves  and  the  few  small  fishes. 

My  brethren,  I  am  pleading  against  a  fearful  neglect 
of  duty,  an  awful  waste  of  spiritual  power,  a  truly  de- 
plorable loss  of  blessed  privilege.  Multitudes  are  per- 
ishing of  soul-hunger  in  the  wilderness  because  they 
who  have  only  the  barley  loaves  to  give  will  not  give 
them,  because  Christians  who  have  only  commonplace 
talents  and  gifts  will  not  consecrate  them  to  Christ  and 
let  Him  use  them  and  multiply  them  and  transmute 
them  into  the  bread  of  life  for  the  famishing  multitudes. 


The  Five  Loaves  and  the  Two  Small  Fishes  213 

O  my  brothers,  let  us  awake  to  the  sore  need  of  our 
fellow  men,  to  our  heavy  responsibility,  to  our  great 
opportunity,  and  to  the  unspeakable  privilege  that  is 
permitted  us  of  being  colaborers  with  Christ  in  His  di- 
vine task  of  uphfting  the  world.  Yes,  for,  as  one  of 
the  seers  of  this  Western  world  has  said,  "The  day  is 
wearing  away;  this  is  a  desert  place;  there  are  hungry, 
perishing  multitudes  around  us,  and  Christ  is  saying 
to  us  all,  '  Give  ye  them  to  eat.'  Say  not.  We  cannot, 
we  have  nothing  to  give.  Go  to  your  duty,  every  one, 
and  trust  yourselves  to  Him,  for  He  will  give  you  all 
supply  just  as  fast  as  you  need  it.  .  .  .  Make  large  ad- 
ventures. Trust  God  for  great  things.  With  your 
loaves  and  two  fishes  He  will  show  you  a  way  to  feed 
thousands." 


THE    PRODIGAL    SON 

FOR   THE   FIFTH   SUNDAY   IN   LENT 

"And  he  said,  A  certain  man  had  two  sons:  and  the  younger  of 
them  said  to  his  father,  Father,  give  me  the  portion  of  goods  that 
falleth  to  me.  And  he  divided  unto  them  his  living.  And  not 
many  days  after  the  younger  son  gathered  all  together,  and  took 
his  journey  into  a  far  country,  and  there  wasted  his  substance 
with  riotous  living." — St.  Luke  xv.  11-13. 

This  exquisite  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son  is  without  a 
parallel  in  literature.  Its  beauty  and  its  pathos  are 
unequalled  in  the  realm  of  fiction,  and  its  power  to  touch 
and  melt  the  human  heart  is  equally  unapproached. 
No  such  picture  of  human  sin  and  repentance  and  resto- 
ration has  ever  been  drawn.  Every  line  is  a  revelation, 
every  word  a  sacrament  of  some  profound  spiritual 
truth. 

Let  us  make  it  our  study  this  morning  in  two  or  three 
of  its  most  striking  features. 

1.  And  first  let  us  ask,  Who  does  the  prodigal  stand 
for  f  Well,  he  is  the  spendthrift,  or  the  fast  young  man. 
who  has  broken  away  from  parental  control  and  home 
influence,  has  plunged  into  dissipation  or  vice,  squan- 
dered his  patrimony,  and  come  to  want.  Or  he  is  the 
man  who  has  spent  his  youth  in  vicious  courses,  wasted 
his  strength  and  his  talents  on  unworthy  objects,  and 
so  made  himself  bankrupt  in  health,  in  hope,  in  fortune, 
and  in  character  before  he  has  reached  middle  age.  Ah, 
but  the  lines  of  the  picture  in  the  parable  are  more  com- 


The  Prodigal  Son  215 

prehensive  than  either  or  both  of  these  instances  suggest. 
The  prodigal  is  here  to-day  in  the  person  of  every  one 
in  this  congregation  who  is  hving  a  Hfe  apart  from  God. 
The  boy  in  the  parable  grew  impatient  of  parental  con- 
trol. He  would  assert  his  independence;  he  would  be 
his  own  master;  he  would  get  away  from  the  old  home 
and  from  his  father's  authority,  and  so  he  "  gathers  all 
together  and  takes  his  journey  into  a  far  country." 

That — just  that — is  the  heart-history  of  not  a  few  of 
those  who  hear  my  voice  to-day — of  every  one,  in  fact, 
who  in  his  self-will  and  self-sufficiency  has  turned  away 
from  God  his  Father  to  find  his  desire  and  his  satisfac- 
tion in  the  world.  Long  ago,  it  may  be,  you  grew  im- 
patient of  the  restraints  of  the  religious  life  in  which  you 
were  trained.  You  determined  to  be  your  own  master — 
to  follow  your  own  inchnations — to  live  your  own  life, 
independent  of  your  Heavenly  Father's  control.  And 
so  you  broke  away  from  the  ideas  and  the  habits  and  the 
restraints  of  the  hfe  in  which  you  were  brought  up,  and 
adventured  forth  into  a  world  of  your  o^ti  choosing,  a 
"  far  country,"  far  away  from  the  religion  of  your  father 
and  your  mother,  far  away  from  the  old-fashioned 
habits  of  prayer  and  Bible-reading  and  church-going 
and  keeping  holy  the  Lord's  day — in  a  word,  far  away 
from  the  fear  and  love  of  God  your  Father  in  heaven. 

Ah,  my  friends,  whoever  of  you,  old  or  young,  is  living 
in  that  "far  country"  of  forgetfulness  of  God,  neglect 
of  His  service,  disobedience  to  His  will,  alienation  from 
His  love,  absorption  in  the  things  of  this  present  world, 
idolatry  of  the  things  of  the  senses,  or  the  things  of  the 
imagination,  or  the  things  of  the  intellect — that  man 
or  that  woman  is  this  day  in  the  place  of  the  prodigal. 
And  to   him  or  to  her  comes  this  blessed  parable  of 


2i6        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

Jesus  Christ  to  show  the  folly  and  the  sin  of  such  a 
life,  and  to  reveal  the  emptiness  and  the  wretchedness 
of  a  life  without  God  in  the  world. 

2.  Consider  next  the  experience  of  the  prodigal.  At 
first  he  had  a  royal  time,  feasting  and  merrymaking, 
quaffing  every  cup  of  pleasure  that  the  world  could  offer, 
plunging  more  and  more  recklessly  into  every  form  of 
dissipation,  "  wasting  his  substance  with  riotous  living." 

But  at  length  he  ran  through  his  fortune,  and  then 
"  there  arose  a  mighty  famine  in  that  land  and  he  began 
to  be  in  want."  The  rich  young  man  is  now  come  down 
to  poverty,  and  to  such  an  extremity  that  he  takes 
service  as  a  swineherd!  What  a  picture  he  presents  in 
the  field  feeding  swine,  his  shoes  outworn,  his  clothes  in 
rags,  his  face  and  hands  burned  almost  black  with  ex- 
posure to  the  sun,  and  so  pinched  with  hunger  that  he 
would  fain  have  made  a  meal  on  the  husks  that  the  swine 
did  eat!  And  no  man  gave  unto  him!  All  his  friends 
and  boon  companions  have  forsaken  him!  Nor  will 
one  of  them  even  give  him  a  morsel  of  bread  to  appease 
his  hunger! 

There  could  not  be  a  more  graphic  portrayal  of  the 
degradation  and  humiliation  that  often  follows  in  the 
wake  of  dissipation  and  sinful  excess.  Our  nineteenth- 
century  and  twentieth-century  sensual  prodigals  drink 
of  the  same  bitter  cup  that  the  young  man  of  the  parable 
drank  of. 

But  what  of  the  sober  and  respectable  prodigals  who 
are  not  dissipated  and  vicious,  but  just  worldly  and 
thoughtless  of  God?  Is  their  experience  at  all  like  that 
of  the  young  man  in  our  parable? 

Undoubtedly  it  is.  Chiefly  in  this,  that  the  things 
of  the  world  do  not  really  satisfy  them. 


The  Prodigal  Son  217 

Undoubtedly  a  worldly  life,  if  it  is  successful — and 
that  you  know  is  a  big  "if" — brings  with  it  a  certain 
amount  and  degree  of  satisfaction.  Pleasure  is  sweet 
to  the  taste.  The  prizes  of  the  world,  in  the  realms  of 
art,  of  science,  of  politics,  of  social  and  professional 
ambition — wealth,  with  its  ease  and  its  luxury;  place, 
with  its  distinction  and  its  influence;  fame,  with  its 
intellectual  intoxication — all  these  things  please  and 
gratify  human  nature.  It  would  be  folly  to  deny  that 
to  a  certain  extent  they  satisfy  the  aspirations  of  men. 
But  is  the  satisfaction  deep  and  solid?  Is  it  lasting? 
On  the  contrary,  I  affirm  that  it  is  shallow  and  evanes- 
cent. The  world  "keeps  the  word  of  promise  to  the 
ear,  but  breaks  it  to  the  hope."  By  and  by  its  pleas- 
ures pall.  Its  glories  fade.  Its  crowns  of  honor  wilt 
and  ^vithe^.  Its  apples  of  gold  turn  to  apples  of  Sodom. 
And  why?  For  the  very  simple  and  sufficient  reason 
that  man  is  fundamentally  a  spiritual  being,  and  no 
material  things — nor  intellectual  things  either — can 
really  satisfy  him.  He  is  built  on  too  large,  too  noble, 
a  plan  to  be  long  content  with  what  the  world  can  offer. 
He  belongs  not  to  the  mineral  kingdom,  or  to  the  animal 
kingdom,  but  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  He  was  made 
in  the  image  of  God — he  is  a  child  of  God,  and  he  will 
never  be  really  satisfied  till  he  is  back  in  his  Father's 
house.  As  St.  Augustine  so  powerfully  says,  "  0  God, 
Thou  hast  made  me  for  Thyself,  and  my  heart  is  restless 
till  it  rest  in  Thee." 

Oh,  my  brother,  you  who  are  still  hving  in  the  far 
country,  away  from  your  Heavenly  Father,  awake  to  the 
fact  that  neither  the  things  of  the  flesh,  nor  the  things 
of  the  imagination,  nor  the  things  of  the  intellect,  nor 
even  the  joys  of  a  happy  home,  can  truly  and  perma- 


2i8        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

nently  satisfy  you.  Much,  much  of  what  the  world  has 
to  give  is  no  better  than  the  husks  that  the  swine  do 
eat!  Even  its  best  and  most  innocent  things  will  not 
stay  the  hunger  of  your  soul,  and,  in  the  end,  you  will 
be  face  to  face  with  a  "  mighty  famine"  in  that  land  of 
worldly  good.  You  will  be  "  in  want " — though  you  may 
be  living  in  abundance  and  luxury !  "  In  want " — though 
everything  the  w^orld  can  give  be  at  your  command! 
"In  want"— though  you  may  be  an  object  of  envy  to 
thousands  of  your  fellow  men !  Ah,  when  the  himger  of 
the  soul  is  once  aroused  nothing  can  appease  it  but  God 
Himself — God,  our  Father! 

3.  Pass  we  now  to  the  prodigal's  repentance.  Here 
is  the  record:  "  When  he  came  to  himself,  he  said,  How 
many  hired  servants  of  my  father's  have  bread  enough 
and  to  spare,  and  I  perish  with  hunger !  I  will  arise  and 
go  to  my  father,  and  will  say  unto  him.  Father,  I  have 
sinned  against  heaven,  and  before  thee,  and  am  no  more 
worthy  to  be  called  thy  son:  make  me  as  one  of  thy 
hired  servants." 

Observe  now  the  peculiar  expression  here  employed 
to  describe  the  young  man's  repentance:  "He  came  to 
himself."     It  is  full  of  significance. 

When  a  sick  man  who  has  been  in  the  delirium  of 
fever  returns  to  reason  we  say,  "  He  has  come  to  him- 
self." When  one  who  has  been  rescued  from  drowning 
at  length  awakes  from  unconsciousness,  opens  his  eyes, 
and  recognizes  his  friends,  we  say  again,  ''  He  has  come 
to  himself."  When  a  somnambulist  comes  from  under 
the  strange  spell  that  has  entranced  him  and  made  him 
deaf  to  reason  or  remonstrance  we  say,  "  He  has  come 
to  himself." 

So  this  expression,  in  its  application  to  the  repentance 


The  Prodigal  Son  2i(> 

of  the  prodigal,  implies  that  his  previous  hfe  of  self- 
indulgence  and  sin  and  shame  had  been  the  result  of  a 
suspension  of  his  faculties,  as  if  he  had  been  in  the  deli- 
rium of  fever,  as  if  he  had  been  unconscious  like  the  half- 
drowned  man,  as  if  he  had  been  in  a  fatal  trance  hke 
the  somnambulist.  During  all  that  life  of  dissipation 
and  debauchery  the  young  man  was  not  himself.  Now 
he  comes  to  himself  and  sees  his  conduct  and  his  position 
in  their  true  light. 

Now  we  all  assent  to  this.  Every  one,  I  suppose, 
agrees  that  a  man  is  not  himself — that  at  least  is  the 
most  charitable  view  of  it — when  he  can  so  outrage 
reason  and  decency  as  to  abandon  himself  to  a  life  of 
sensual  vice. 

But  what  do  you  say  of  the  life  that  is  not  vicious,  but 
just  altogether  worldly  and  earthly  in  its  aims — the  life 
that  many  of  you  are  leading — not  a  dishonest,  or  an  in- 
decent, or  a  corrupt  hfe,  but  just  a  life  that  has  no  God 
in  it,  no  Christ  in  it,  no  hope  of  immortahty,  no  horizon 
but  that  of  time  and  sense,  no  heavenly  inspiration,  no 
aspiration  for  the  divine?  Tell  me  if,  at  best,  such  a 
life  is  not,  after  all,  that  of  a  man  who  is  not  himself. 
Ah,  my  friends,  it  is  an  irrational  life.  It  is  downright 
unreason  for  the  creature  to  try  to  live  without  the 
Creator — for  the  child  to  disown  his  Father.  Why,  such 
a  man  cuts  himself  off  from  the  source  of  his  being !  He 
is  like  a  branch  cut  off  from  the  tree  which  alone  gives  it 
life! 

I  say,  then,  and  I  appeal  to  your  own  consciences  to 
confirm  what  I  say,  that  the  man  who  Hves  a  purely 
worldly  hfe,  a  life  without  God,  is  the  victim  of  a  kind 
of  moral  fever,  which  unsettles  some  of  the  active  powers 
of  his  being,  so  that  he  does  not  see  things  in  their  true 


2  20        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

relations  and  proportions ;  he  mistakes  fancies  for  facts ; 
he  takes  the  shadow  for  the  substance;  he  is  not  him- 
self. 

Or  you  may  say  he  is  like  a  somnambulist,  the  victim 
of  a  fixed  idea,  open  to  impressions  along  the  line  of  that 
idea,  but  deaf  and  blind  to  all  else;  alert,  active,  wide 
awake  in  all  matters  that  pertain  to  this  present  world, 
but  singularly  impervious  to  the  influence  of  the  things 
of  the  kingdom  of  God ;  deaf  to  the  appeals  of  a  Heavenly 
Father's  love ;  blind  to  the  beauty  of  the  gospel  of  grace, 
mercy,  and  peace! 

Or,  yet  again,  you  may  say  that  such  an  one  is  in  a 
kind  of  stupor  of  spiritual  unconsciousness,  so  that  he 
does  not  hear  the  voice  of  his  Heavenly  Father  who  is 
bending  over  him  in  love  and  pity,  nor  does  he  feel  the 
pressure  of  the  everlasting  arms  of  mercy  which  encom- 
pass him  even  in  his  ungodliness. 

You  see,  then,  how  apt  is  the  expression  used  here  to 
describe  the  prodigal's  repentance,  and  how  profoundly 
significant  it  is :  "  He  came  to  himself."  Ah  yes.  And 
when  he  came  to  himself  he  saw  the  folly  of  living  in 
that  far  country,  away  from  the  father  who  loved  him, 
away  from  the  house  which  was  his  home. 

When  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  calls  us  to  repentance, 
it  calls  us  to  return  to  reason — to  come  out  of  the  blind- 
ness and  the  stupor  of  sin  into  light,  into  the  conscious- 
ness of  our  higher  relations,  into  the  recognition  of  our 
nobler,  better  nature  as  the  sons  of  God  and  the  inheri- 
tors of  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  is  a  summons  to  come 
to  ourselves — to  recognize  the  dignity  and  nobility  of 
our  place  in  the  universe  of  God's  creatures — yes,  to 
claim  our  heritage  as  heirs  of  God  and  joint  heirs  with 
Jesus  Christ. 


I 


The  Prodigal  Son  221 

The  Christian  Hfe  is  based  on  the  highest  reason.  It 
is  an  emancipated  life.  It  is  a  Hfe  with  a  broad  outlook 
upon  the  universe.  It  opens  out  before  us  a  boundless 
horizon  of  hope  and  possible  attainment.  It  is  a  sum- 
mons to  the  highest  and  completest  self-development. 
It  calls  us  out  of  narrowness  and  pettiness  into  the 
breadth  and  the  height  and  the  length  and  the  depth 
of  the  things  unseen  and  eternal.  This  is  its  message, 
* '  Now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  appear 
what  we  shall  be." 

My  brother,  you  that  are  still  living,  like  the  prodigal, 
far  from  God  your  Father,  let  me  ask  you  in  conclusion 
this  morning,  When  will  ijou  come  to  yourself  ?  Why  not 
now?  Why  not  this  very  day?  Why  go  on  laboring 
for  that  which  satisfieth  not— spending  your  strength 
for  that  which  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  bread  to  the  soul? 
Why  continue  to  live  without  God,  when  such  a  life  is 
contrary  to  all  that  is  noblest  and  best  in  your  being? 
Why  not  awake  to  the  true  significance  of  life — to  a 
recognition  that  you  are  a  child  of  God,  and  that  you 
are  missing  the  noblest  purpose  of  a  human  life  in  not 
returning  to  that  divine  Father  from  whom  you  have 
wandered  and  whose  love  you  have  so  strangely  de- 
spised? 

One  thing  is  certain :  if  you  do  awake,  if  you  do  come 
to  yourself,  you  will  be  smitten  with  penitence  for  your 
past  life.  "  Father,  I  have  sinned  "  will  be  your  heart- 
felt confession,  "  and  am  no  more  worthy  to  he  called  Thy 
son."  There  is  no  other  road  back  to  God  but  that 
which  leads  through  the  valley  of  contrition  and  repent- 
ance.    But  the  picture  of  the  penitent  prodigal  makes 


222         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

another  truth  equally  clear  and  equally  certain,  and  that 
is,  that  the  Father  whom  you  have  grieved  by  your 
sin  is  more  than  ready  to  take  you  back  to  His  favor. 

Listen  to  the  story: 

* '  And  he  arose  and  came  to  his  father.  But  when  he 
was  yet  a  great  way  off,  his  father  saw  him  and  had  com- 
passion and  ran  and  fell  on  his  neck  and  kissed  him. 
And  the  son  said  unto  him,  'Father,  I  have  sinned 
against  heaven  and  in  thy  sight,  and  am  no  more  worthy 
to  be  called  thy  son.'  But  the  father  said  to  his  ser- 
vants, '  Bring  forth  the  best  robe  and  put  it  on  him;  and 
put  a  ring  on  his  liand  and  shoes  on  his  feet ;  and  bring 
hither  the  fatted  calf  and  kill  it,  and  let  us  eat  and  be 
merry ;  for  this  my  son  was  dead  and  is  alive  again ;  he 
was  lost  and  is  found.'  " 

My  brethren,  such  is  the  welcome  that  awaits  every 
one  of  us  who  will  this  day  come  to  himself  and  then 
arise  and  go  to  his  Father.  O  the  joy  and  the  blessing 
of  those  words  of  divine  compassion,  "  This  wy  son  was 
dead  and  is  alive  again  ;  he  was  lost  and  is  jovnd  !  " 


CHRIST  WEEPING   OVER  JERUSALEM 

FOR    PALM   SUNDAY 

"  And  when  He  was  come  near  He  beheld  the  city  and  wept  over 
it." — Luke  xix.  41. 

Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  going  up  to  Jerusalem  to 
attend  the  Feast  of  the  Passover,  and  to  give  Himself 
to  be  the  Passover  Lamb  for  the  deliverance  of  a  con- 
demned and  guilty  world.  The  news  of  His  approach 
creates  a  great  stir  among  the  multitudes  already  in 
the  city;  for  the  raising  of  Lazarus  from  the  dead  a 
few  days  before  had  both  intensified  the  hatred  with 
which  the  rulers  regarded  Him,  and  also  greatly  in- 
creased His  popularity  among  the  people,  so  that  ex- 
pectation was  now  raised  to  the  highest  pitch  among 
all  classes.  He  sets  out  from  Bethany  attended  by  a 
large  company,  made  up  partly  of  His  own  disciples, 
partly  of  other  pilgrims  going  up  to  the  Holy  City  to 
keep  the  feast.  The  procession  rapidly  increases  in 
numbers  as  it  advances.  They  place  Him  on  an  ass 
and  hail  Him  as  the  Son  of  David.  Some  cast  their 
garments  before  Him;  others  cut  down  branches  from 
the  trees — the  fig,  the  olive,  and  the  walnut — and  strew 
them  in  the  way.  As  the  procession  approaches  the 
city  other  multitudes  surge  forth  from  its  gates  to  meet 
Him  and  to  escort  Him  with  royal  honors;  they  wave 
branches  of  the  palm  as  before  a  conqueror;  they  fill 
the  air  with  their  shouts  of  simple  joy,  haihng  the 

223 


2  24        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

Prophet  of  Galilee  as  the  King  of  Israel.  It  was  the 
one  day  of  triumph  in  the  life  of  the  Man  of  Sorrows! 

The  air  is  still  resounding  with  their  hosannas  when, 
as  the  procession  reaches  that  point  where  the  road 
over  the  Mount  of  Olives  suddenly  turns  northward 
and  the  great  city  bursts  upon  the  view,  Jesus  is  over- 
powered with  strong  emotion.  Instinctively  the  mul- 
titude had  paused  with  Him  to  gaze  for  a  moment  upon 
the  splendid  spectacle;  instinctively  their  joyous  shouts 
had  been  hushed,  and  every  eye  and  every  heart  had 
been  turned  toward  Jerusalem.  And  now,  as  He  gazes 
upon  the  magnificent  metropolis  of  Judaism,  glowing 
in  the  morning  sunlight,  its  massive  walls,  its  lofty 
towers,  its  costly  palaces — above  all,  the  glorious  tem- 
ple, with  its  minarets  of  pure  white  marble  and  its  roof 
of  burnished  gold — Jesus  is  affected  to  tears.  "He 
beheld  the  city  and  wept  over  it" — yes,  wept  aloud, 
for  such  is  the  meaning  of  the  word. 

My  brethren,  what  is  the  significance  of  an  incident 
so  incongruous  with  the  spirit  of  the  triumphal  pro- 
cession of  which  His  person  was  the  centre?  The  spec- 
tacle before  Him  might  well  excite  very  different  emo- 
tions in  the  breast  of  a  Jew.  That  great  city  at  the 
time  of  the  Passover  is  believed  to  have  contained 
nearly  three  millions  of  souls,  if  we  may  trust  the 
historian  Josephus.*  It  must  have  been  a  splendid 
and  an  inspiring  sight  then,  when  Jerusalem  was  still 
a  proud  and  beautiful  city,  reckoned  one  of  the  won- 
ders of  the  world,t  and  filling  Titus  with  amazement 
by  the  massiveness  of  its  buildings.  For  more  than 
a  thousand  years  it  had  been  the  centre  of  Jewish 
life  and  the  heart  of  Jewish  worship  and  the  focus 
*  W.  J.,  VI,  ix,  3.  t  Tacitus'  Hist.,  V,  8. 


Christ  Weeping  Over  Jerusalem  225 

of  Jewish  memories  and  hopes.  To  look  upon  it  now, 
when  it  was  thronged  with  myriads  of  faithful  Jews 
from  every  quarter,  might  well  awaken  patriotic  pride 
and  inspire  the  burning  hope  that  it  would  one  day  be 
free  from  the  hated  Roman  yoke. 

But  instead  of  exultation  it  is  sadness  which  fills  the 
soul  of  Jesus!  Instead  of  rejoicing  over  the  magnifi- 
cent city  He  weeps  over  it!  Why?  Ah,  because 
another  and  a  very  different  sight  presents  itself  to  His 
prophetic  eye.  He  sees  Jerusalem  compassed  with  the 
armies  of  Titus.  He  sees  the  face  of  that  smiling 
landscape  bruised  and  wounded  by  the  iron  hoof  of  war. 
He  sees  those  stately  palms  and  giant  olives  felled  to 
build  the  Roman  besiegers'  ramparts.  Those  heights 
are,  to  His  sight,  lined  with  engines  of  war;  those 
valleys  filled  with  the  putrefying  bodies  of  the  myriads 
who  fell  victims  to  the  famine ;  those  hills  crowned  with 
crosses,  each  bearing  the  body  of  a  Jew.  From  out 
those  gates  He  sees  issuing  myriads  of  captive  Jews 
going — some  to  cruel  slavery,  others  to  die  in  the 
arena,  making  sport  for  Gentile,  pagan  crowds.  Yes, 
and  that  gorgeous  temple,  with  all  its  holy  things.  He 
sees  it  laid  in  ashes!  This  was  why  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
wept  over  the  city:  because  He  saw  it  with  other  eyes 
than  those  around  Him — saw  it  like  a  ship  sailing  into 
the  jaws  of  destruction;  captain  and  crew  and  passen- 
gers all  unconscious  of  the  fatal  reef  concealed  beneath 
the  treacherous  waters. 

Shall  we  say,  then,  that  Jesus  wept  over  Jerusalem  as 
a  Jew  over  his  fallen  country?  Yes;  for  Jesus  was  a 
patriot.  As  a  man — tears  of  compassion  over  so  much 
human  misery?  Yes;  for  His  was  the  tenderest  heart 
that  ever  beat  in  human  bosom.     But  there  was  more 


2  26         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

than  this:  He  was  "the  everlasting  Father,"  and  these 
were  His  children — alas!  guilty  and  rebeUious  children 
who  would  none  of  His  reproof,  who  rejected  all  of  His 
paternal  love  and  spurned  the  hand  that  was  stretched 
out  to  save  them. 

Yes,  from  this  point  we  get  nearest  to  the  meaning 
of  those  tears — they  gushed  from  His  great  father-heart 
because  of  the  ruin  of  His  children. 

Brethren,  these  tears  of  Jesus,  like  those  He  shed  in 
compassion  a  few  days  before  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus 
(silent  tears  of  pity  for  human  woe),  like  those  He  was 
to  shed  a  few  days  after,  under  the  great  olive-trees  on 
the  slope  of  the  same  Olivet,  when  alone  He  met  His 
agony — tears  from  His  eyes,  and,  oh!  tears  of  blood 
from  His  sacred  brow — are  full  of  meaning  for  us  to- 
day, nearly  nineteen  hundred  years  after  they  fell  from 
those  divine  eyes  of  His. 

They  signify  the  perfection  of  His  manhood.  They 
tell  us  that  He  was  constituted  with  all  the  deep  and 
delicate  sensibilities  of  our  humanity;  that  in  Him,  as 
in  us,  there  was  that  mystic  harmony  between  the 
physical  and  the  spiritual  organisms,  of  which  tears 
are  so  eloquent  a  proof — gracious  drops  springing  from 
the  fountains  of  the  body  in  response  to  the  call  of  the 
soul's  distress.  To  know,  therefore,  that  Jesus  wept 
is  to  have  a  most  pathetic  proof  of  His  true  humanity 
— one  which  inspires  the  soul  with  boldness  to  confide 
in  Him  in  every  time  of  need. 

It  is  also  to  possess  a  peerless  instance  of  the  truth 
that  tears  are  not  necessarily  an  evidence  of  weakness 
that  they  may  be  the  note  of  the  most  sublime  man- 
hood: for  all  the  shame  and  suffering  to  which  Jesus 
was  subjected  at  the  tribunals  of  Caiaphas,  and  Annas 


Christ  Weeping  Over  Jerusalem  227 

and  Pilate,  and  Herod,  and  at  last  on  the  hill  of  Cal- 
vary— the  scourge,  and  the  nails,  and  the  cross — 
brought  no  tear  from  His  eyes  or  cry  from  His  lips. 

But  on  these  thoughts  I  cannot  dwell;  other  con- 
siderations press  for  utterance. 

1.  These  tears  were  shed  because  Jerusalem  had  re- 
jected Jesus  and  so  sealed  her  doom.  Hear  His  lamen- 
tation: "If  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least  in 
this  thy  day  the  things  which  belong  unto  thy  peace; 
but  now  they  are  hid  from  thine  eyes."  It  seemed  to 
the  Jews  a  small  thing  to  reject  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  no 
way  connected  with  the  weal  or  woe  of  that  still  great 
and  proud  people.  And  so  they  did  reject  Him;  some 
as  an  ignorant 'enthusiast;  some  as  a  designing  impos- 
tor; some  as  a  blasphemous  pretender;  some  as  a  con- 
federate of  Beelzebub.  But  it  did  concern  their  "  peace  " 
and  the  prosperity  of  the  commonwealth.  This  last 
act  of  guilty  resistance  of  the  divine  will  filled  up  the 
measure  of  their  guilt  and  brought  upon  that  genera- 
tion the  judgment  of  the  God  of  justice  and  holiness. 

To  many  of  you,  my  hearers,  it  may  seem  in  hke 
manner  a  small  thing  to  refuse  to  have  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth rule  over  you — not  at  all  connected  with  your  peace 
here  or  hereafter;  but  it  does  vitally  and  eternally  be- 
long to  your  peace,  because  in  rejecting  Him  you  are 
rejecting  the  voice  of  truth  and  purity  and  hohness. 
Do  you,  indeed,  do  homage  to  Truth?  Then  can  you 
fail  to  recognize  His  voice  as  the  voice  of  Truth?  Do 
not  His  precepts  command  the  assent  of  your  con- 
science? Do  not  His  words  carry  with  them  their  own 
credentials?  Do  you  not  see  that  they  are  stamped 
with  the  image  and  superscription  of  the  great  King? 
Do  you  not  perceive  that  such  hohness,  such  subhmity 


2  28         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

of  character,  such  unparalleled  exaltation  of  hfe  must 
be  superhuman,  divine?  Or  can  you  deny  that  such 
penetration  of  human  motives  and  human  hearts  was 
more  than  mortal  man  could  ever  possess?  And  can 
there  be  any  doubt  that  He  who  gives  such  sure  light 
on  all  moral  problems  cannot  but  speak  true  when  tell- 
ing us  of  heavenly  things?  Truth  and  falsehood  could 
not  thus  coexist  in  one  Person;  such  a  man  as  He  was 
could  neither  deceive  nor  be  deceived.  His  voice  calls 
to  holiness;  and  everything  that  is  best  and  purest  and 
noblest  in  you  is  stirred  and  moved  by  that  voice  of 
His.  Hence  to  reject  Him  is  to  yield  to  the  impulses 
in  you  that  are  not  the  best  or  the  highest  and  to  re- 
fuse the  counsel  of  all  the  voices  of  good  that  con- 
science hears  within.  Does  it  not  then  "  belong  to  your 
peace"  to  yield  love,  obedience,  adoration  to  Jesus  of 
Nazareth?  Ah,  test  it  by  experience.  Find  a  man  or 
woman  who  has  honestly  submitted  heart  and  life  to 
His  rule,  and  you  will  find  an  individual  whose  life  has 
become  keyed  to  a  melody  which  is  divine  and  whose 
complex  nature  has  for  the  first  time  reached  the  peace 
and  harmony  for  which  it  had  till  then  longed  and 
striven  in  vain.  Yes,  honest  submission  to  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  as  Saviour  and  King,  does  bring  peace  to 
these  human  lives  of  ours. 

On  the  other  hand,  you  who  have  not  submitted 
yourselves  to  the  sceptre  of  Jesus  Christ,  have  you 
found  the  secret  of  real  peace?  Have  your  lives  at- 
tained their  equilibrium?  Are  reason  and  conscience 
and  conduct  at  one?  Is  your  life  moving  upon  hues 
that  promise  satisfaction  both  to  your  intellectual  and 
moral  and  spiritual  being?  Nay,  are  you  not  really 
out  of  harmony  with  yourself?    Is  there  not  a  conflict 


Christ  Weeping  Over  Jerusalem  229 

between  your  convictions  and  the  trend  of  your  con- 
duct? Are  you  not  in  your  heart  of  hearts  the  victim 
of  unrest?  Either  you  are  thoughtlessly  living  ab- 
sorbed only  in  the  things  that  are  temporal  and  ma- 
terial, wdthout  God  and  without  hope  in  the  world,  and 
reckless  of  that  fact,  or  else  there  are  times  when  it 
presses  upon  you  as  a  fact  of  tremendous  and  sinister 
significance  that  you  have  no  hope  beyond  the  grave, 
no  assurance  that  you  are  in  the  road  that  leads  to 
eternal  peace. 

My  brother,  your  life  may  be  as  bright  and  fair  as 
was  Jerusalem  on  that  first  Palm  Sunday,  as  it  lay  in 
the  sunshine  beneath  the  Mount  of  OUves.  The  rays 
of  prosperity  may  illumine  your  home;  success  may 
attend  your  plans;  the  world  may  smile  upon  you; 
youth,  with  its  bounding  pulse  and  its  buoyant  hopes 
and  its  bright  dreams  may  be  yours;  and  yet,  were  the 
Son  of  God  on  earth  to-day,  and  were  He  to  look  upon 
your  life  as  He  looked  upon  Jerusalem  from  the  Mount 
of  Olives,  He  might  be  moved  again  as  He  was  then, 
and  with  the  same  emotion  of  yearning,  compassionate, 
yet  sorrowful  pity.  What  do  I  say?  He  is  among 
us ;  and  He  does  look  down  this  day  upon  you  from  the 
height  of  a  greater  than  Ohvet;  and  He  is  moved  with 
the  same  compassion  and  pity  for  us  all. 

"  When  He  beheld  the  city  He  wept  over  it, "  because 
it  had  obstinately  resisted  the  truth,  refused  to  be 
warned,  closed  its  ears  and  steeled  its  heart  against  the 
message  of  redeeming  love;  and  He  saw  the  fatal,  the 
necessary  consequence — saw  the  storm-cloud  of  disaster 
gathering  its  forces  to  burst  in  irresistible  fury  upon 
the  doomed  city. 

O  friends,  who   shall   say  that   again  on   this  Palm 


230         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

Sunday  the  Son  of  Man  does  not  weep  as  He  looks 
down  on  one  and  another  of  His  children — perhaps  in 
this  congregation — who  has  resisted  all  His  influences^, 
neglected  all  its  opportunities,  bhndly  refused  to  recog- 
nize the  day  of  its  visitation,  till  now  the  things  which 
belong  unto  its  peace  are  hid  from  its  eyes,  and  the  Son 
of  Man,  who  came  to  save  it,  and  who  ever  liveth  to 
make  intercession  for  it,  sees  from  His  throne  of  glory 
that  all  has  been  in  vain — yea,  and  will  be  in  vain — 
and  that  nothing  remains  but  a  certain  fearful  looking 
for  of  judgment  and  fiery  indignation,  when  the  wrath 
so  long  treasured  up  by  such  a  soul  against  itself  shall 
at  last  burst  upon  it. 

It  is  a  solemn,  yea,  an  awful  lesson  which  these  tears 
of  Jesus  teach — that  man  may  neglect  his  opportuni- 
ties and  harden  his  heart  till  even  the  love  and  grace 
of  Jesus  cannot  save  him.  Oh!  clear  as  a  sunbeam  it 
is  that  Jesus  would  have  saved  Jerusalem  if  He  could. 
But  He  could  not;  she  had  covered  herself  with  an  im- 
penetrable armor  of  rebellion  and  blindness  and  unbe- 
Uef.  "The  things  which  belonged  to  her  peace"  were 
"hid  from  her  eyes." 

Beware  of  a  similar  result  in  your  own  case.  Take 
heed  lest  you  too  be  hardened  by  the  deceitf ulness  of 
sin.  Sin  is  an  indurating  process.  Resist  God's  Spirit 
to-day  and  you  will  fuid  yourself  stronger  to  resist 
Him  to-morrow,  till  at  length  you  shall  grow  callous 
to  all  His  influences. 

Jerusalem  knew  not  the  day  of  her  visitation — that 
was  her  condemnation  and  her  ruin.  Great  had  al- 
ways been  the  privileges  of  the  Jewish  people.  God 
had  visited  them  graciously  and  marvellously  in  many 
times  and  ways — by  prophets,  by  priests,  by  kings,  by 


Christ  Weeping  Over  Jerusalem  231 

angelic  messengers.  But  now  was  a  time  of  supremely 
gracious  visitation;  "He  sent  unto  them  His  Son.*' 
How  sad  that  they  would  not  receive  Him!  They 
knew  not  the  time  of  their  visitation. 

So  there  are  in  the  lives  of  us  all  times  of  visitation. 
At  all  times,  thank  God,  our  opportunities  are  great :  an 
open  Bible;  a  mercy-seat  accessible  to  all;  exceeding 
great  and  precious  promises.  But  there  are  times 
when  God  draws  much  nearer  to  the  soul — as  in  sick- 
ness, as  in  affliction,  as  in  bereavement — when  God's 
truth  shines  out  more  clearly,  when  the  powers  of  the 
world  to  come  are  realized,  when  eternity  opens  be- 
fore the  soul,  when  the  conscience  is  tender  and  the 
world  for  a  time  loses  its  power. 

Oh,  the  solemnity  of  those  times  of  visitation! 


THE  LAMB  SLAIN  FROM   THE   FOUNDATION 
OF   THE   WORLD 

FOR    GOOD-FRIDAY 

"  The  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world." — Rev.  xiii.  8. 
"  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself." 

II.  Cor.  V.  19. 

The  apostle's  words  in  the  second  of  these  passages 
open  to  our  view  the  distinctively  Christian  revelation 
of  God.  Here  is  a  view  of  His  nature  which  natural 
religion  knows  nothing  of.  Nature  speaks  of  His  power; 
of  His  wisdom;  of  His  righteousness;  of  His  justice;  of 
His  benevolence ;  but  she  has  no  whisper  in  all  her  wide 
domain,  among  all  her  multitudinous  voices,  of  a  God 
who  reconciles  the  world  unto  Himself. 

And  yet  reconciliation  with  God  is  the  first  need  of 
humanity.  Of  what  avail  is  it  to  me  to  know  that  there 
is  a  God,  and  that  He  is  infinite  in  power,  glorious  in 
holiness,  ineffable  in  wisdom,  and  inexorable  in  right- 
eousness, unless  I  know  also  that  there  is  a  way  of  recon- 
ciliation with  Him?  I  am  unholy;  I  am  full  of  imper- 
fections; nay,  I  have  sinned  against  Him  and  His  laws, 
as  well  as  against  myself  and  the  laws  of  my  nature. 
These  my  sins  have  separated  between  me  and  my  God. 
They  make  a  boundless  incompatibility  between  my 
nature  and  His.  They  open  a  fathomless  gulf  of  estrange- 
ment and  alienation  between  me  and  "the  Holy  One 
that  inhabiteth  eternity " ;  so  that  instead  of  hastening 

.  232 


The  Lamb  Slain  from  the  Foundation     233 

at  the  sound  of  His  voice  to  meet  Him  I  shrink  back,  I 
hide  myself,  I  flee  at  His  approach. 

For  me,  therefore,  a  sinful  mortal,  the  first  and  the 
deepest  necessity  is  reconciliation  with  God.  How  is 
it  to  be  effected?  How  can  it  be  effected?  Nature  is 
dumb.  The  human  heart  is  dumb.  Conscience,  which 
has  a  thousand  several  tongues  to  accuse  me  of  my 
sin,  is  dumb  also.  But  revelation  answers  by  pointing 
to  Jesus  Christ  and  saying,  "  God  tvas  in  Christ  recon- 
ciling the  world  unto  Himself." 

Reassuring  thought!  God  Himself  will  reconcile  me 
to  Himself.  He  will  with  His  own  hand  remove  every 
barrier  to  intercourse  with  Himself.  His  own  fatherly 
love  will  overcome  every  difficulty.  Though  high  as 
heaven  they  shall  all  disappear  before  His  redeeming 
grace.  I  need  not  cry  out,  How  shall  I  be  reconciled  to 
God,  for  God  Himself  has  opened  the  way  and  made 
it  plain  and  clear.  That  is  the  meaning  of  the  Incarna- 
tion: "God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only-begot- 
ten Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  need  not  perish, 
but  have  everlasting  life."  That  is  the  mystic  meaning 
of  the  Ufe  and  death  of  the  Son  of  Man :  "  God  was  in 
Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself."  "When 
Thou  tookest  upon  Thee  to  deliver  man,  thou  didst 
humble  Thyself  to  be  born  of  a  Virgin.  When  Thou 
hadst  overcome  the  sharpness  of  death,  Thou  didst  open 
the  kingdom  of  Heaven  to  all  believers." 

Look  attentively  at  this  aspect  of  the  divine  character. 
We  are  vitally  concerned  to  know,  you  and  I,  what  at- 
titude the  holy  God  assumes  to  us  by  reason  of  that  un~ 
holiness  which  we  feel  more  or  less  intensely  alienates 
us  and  separates  us  from  God.  Jesus  Christ  is  the  an- 
swer.    There,  in  His  face,  behold  how  God  is  affected 


234         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

toward  us.  He  is  Himself  the  Reconciler,  who  opens 
the  path  of  peace,  who  restores  filial  confidence,  who 
rekindles  filial  love,  who  banishes  slavish  fear,  who  up- 
roots the  sense  of  alienation,  who,  in  short,  removes 
every  obstacle  to  reconciliation  between  God  and  man. 
That  act  of  adorable  condescension  whereby  the 
Eternal  Word  "was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us," 
was  the  act  of  God,  who  therein  ''  was  reconciling 
the  world  unto  Himself."  Those  utterances  of  infinite 
pity  and  of  infinite  pathos  which  fell  from  the  lips  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  whereby  He  bid  the  wandering 
return,  the  sinner  repent,  the  weary  one  flee  to  His  open 
arms  for  rest — they  are  all  the  echoes  of  the  voice  of  God 
"reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself."  His  agony  and 
bloody  sweat,  His  Cross  and  Passion — they  are  the  sub- 
lime expression  of  the  divine  suffering  love,  taking  upon 
itself  the  sin  of  the  world,  and  thereby  "  reconciling  the 
world." 

My  brethren,  fix  your  thought  steadfastly  and  in- 
tently upon  this  revelation  of  the  nature  of  God,  until 
its  marvellous  meaning  penetrates  your  soul,  until  its 
divine  healing  rays  flood  your  whole  being.  Infinite 
Love  takes  upon  itself  the  sin  of  the  world !  God  sacri- 
fices Himself  for  man!  The  "Everlasting  Father" 
identifies  Himself  with  His  children  so  completely  that 
their  sins  press  upon  His  heart,  yea,  pierce  it  with  the 
agony  of  Gethsemane  and  Calvary! 

Study  the  passion  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  from  its 
beginning  to  its  tragic  close,  and  remember  that  in  it  all, 
and  through  it  all,  He  was  not  only  doing  the  Father's 
will,  but  manifesting  the  Father's  nature.  Through 
His  whole  life  we  mark  the  interest,  the  pity,  the  labor 
of  Jesus  Christ  for  human  sorrow  and  human  suffering. 


The  Lamb  Slain  from  the  Foundation     235 

But  here  is  more  than  interest  and  pity  and  labor,  here 
is  on  His  part  a  complete  entering  into  our  lot  of  woe 
and  wretchedness.  "Himself  took  our  infirmities  and 
hare  our  sicknesses."  Yea,  He  hath  "home  our  griefs 
and  carried  our  sorrows."  The  prophet  in  vision  sees 
Him  "wounded  for  our  transgressions,  hruised  for  our 
iniquities,"  "hearing  the  sin  of  many,"  yea,  His  very 
soul  made  "an  offering  for  sin."  And  the  apostle  see- 
ing Him  come  so  completely  into  the  wretchedness 
and  woe  of  our  sin,  cries  out  that  "  He  was  made  sin  for 
us."     He  was  "made  a  curse  for  us." 

In  such  expressions  as  these  we  stand  face  to  face 
with  the  radiant  mystery  of  the  law  of  vicarious  sacrifice. 
That  law  lies  at  the  basis  of  the  atonement,  the  atone- 
ment whereby  God  reconciled  a  guilty  and  alienated 
world  unto  Himself. 

Now  I  do  not  propose  here  to  discuss  the  atonement. 
Only  let  us  mark  one  or  two  matters  in  connection 
with  it. 

The  atonement  was  not  in  order  that  God  might  be 
moved  to  pity,  but  because  He  was  so  moved. 

The  whole  Godhead  unites  in  the  sacrifice.  Christ's 
entire  earthly  activity  was  sacrificial.  The  naked  ma- 
terial substitution  of  Christ  for  us  as  an  object  of  pun- 
ishment is  not  the  true  conception  of  vicarious  sacrifice. 
Christ  bore  the  burden,  the  bitterness,  but  not,  strictly 
speaking,  the  punishment  of  our  sins.  The  virtue  of  His 
self-sacrifice  lay,  not  in  the  material  blood  which  He 
shed,  but  in  "  the  voluntary  surrender  of  His  soul  unto 
death."  *  There  is  in  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  a  true  pro- 
pitiation effected;  but  to  conceive  of  God  the  Father 
as  an  angry  God  induced  by  Christ  to  relent  and  take 
♦Van  Oosterzee. 


236        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

pity  upon  sinful  men,  is  a  gross  misunderstanding  of  the 
bibhcal  doctrine  on  this  subject;  is,  in  fact,  to  substitute 
a  heathen  for  the  Christian  view  of  vicarious  sacrifice, 
and  to  put  tritheistic  falsehood  for  trinitarian  truth. 

I  am  concerned,  however,  at  present  only  with  the 
point  of  contact  between  the  fact  of  the  atonement  and 
the  revelation  of  the  nature  of  God  which  is  therein  con- 
tained. That  point  is  this:  The  atonement  shows  us 
God  taking  upon  Himself  the  burden  of  the  guilt  of' 
man.  Mark  it,  I  do  not  say  that  God  laid  the  burden 
of  one  creature's  guilt  upon  another — that  would  have 
been  an  act  of  injustice — but  that  God  took  upon  Him- 
self the  burden  of  human  guilt.  Yes,  upon  Himself; 
for  Christ  was  not  a  "  creature, "  He  was  "  very  God  of 
very  God,"  and  it  is  in  the  light  of  His  deity  that  it 
becomes  possible  to  believe  in  the  atonement. 

Think  therefore  of  the  self-sacrifice  of  Christ  as  a 
revelation  of  the  divine  nature.  See  in  His  life  of  self- 
devoted  love  and  in  His  Cross  and  Passion  "  God  Him- 
self taking  our  sinning  enmity  upon  His  heart,  pain- 
fully burdened  by  our  broken  state,  and  travailing,  in 
all  the  deepest  feeling  of  His  nature,  to  recover  us  to 
Himself."  "  This  it  is  which  the  Cross  and  vicarious  sac- 
rifice of  Jesus  signify  to  us  or  outwardly  express.  Such 
a  God  in  love  must  be  such  a  Saviour  in  suffering — He 
could  not  well  be  other  or  less.  There  is  a  Gethsemane 
hid  in  all  love,  and  when  the  fit  occasion  comes,  no 
matter  how  great  and  high  the  subject  may  be,  its  heavy 
groaning  will  be  heard,  even  as  it  was  in  Christ.  He 
was  in  an  agony,  exceeding  sorrowful  even  unto  death. 
By  that  sign  it  was  that  God's  love  broke  into  the  world, 
and  Christianity  was  born ! "  * 
*  Bushnell. 


The  Lamb  Slain  from  the  Foundation     237 

But  the  nature  of  God  was  not  changed  by  Christianity. 
That  principle  of  self-sacrifice  which  it  reveals  as  part 
of  the  divine  nature  must  have  always  been  present 
therein.  From  all  eternity  vicarious  sacrifice  must  have 
been  a  law  of  Infinite  Love;  Christ  was  a  revelation  in 
time  of  what  God  had  been,  and  is,  and  will  be  forever. 
Always  had  the  heart  of  the  Eternal  responded  to  the 
wants  and  woes  and  been  burdened  by  the  sins  of  man- 
kind. Gethsemane  and  Golgotha  only  revealed  the 
secret  of  a  love  which  had  from  the  beginning  been  hid 
in  God.  The  sacrifice  is  eternal.  The  Lamb  was  slain 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  Redeeming  Love 
stood  waiting  from  the  very  beginning  of  history  for  the 
fulness  of  the  time  when  it  might  unfold  itself  to  men. 

But  is  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  the  same  as  the 
God  of  the  New?  There  are  many  who  deny  it,  and 
assert  that  there  is  a  fundamental  difiference,  yea,  antag- 
onism between  the  two  Testaments  upon  this  first  and 
chiefest  article  of  faith — God. 

But  such  is  not  the  case.  The  whole  difficulty  of  the 
seeming  difference  between  the  God  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  God  of  the  New  is  resolved  by  considering 
that  light  must  be  adapted  to  the  eye  that  is  to  receive 
it.  If  you  pour  too  strong  a  blaze  of  light  upon  a  weak 
or  diseased  eye  you  wdll  blind  it.  So  also  truth  must 
be  adapted  to  the  state  of  the  minds  of  those  who  are 
to  receive  it.  The  revelations  of  the  Old  Testament 
were  accommodated  to  the  different  stages  of  mental  and 
moral  development  to  which  they  were  addressed.  Only 
by  slow  stages  could  the  minds  of  men  be  elevated  to  a 
plane  in  which  they  could  receive  such  a  revelation  as 
that  which  was  given  in  Christ.  A  distinguished  writer 
and  profound  thinker  of  our  generation  said,  "I  verily 


238         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

believe  that  Jesus,  coming  thus  and  then,  would  not 
even  have  been  remembered  in  history." 

The  idea  of  one  God  and  Father  of  all  men  was  too 
high  above  the  point  of  view  even  of  the  Jews  to  have 
been  comprehended.  The  self-sacrifice  of  God  for  man 
as  Christ  reveals  it  would  have  been  as  pearls  before 
swine. 

And  yet  how  often  this  blessed  thought  of  a  love  which 
was  stronger  than  death  flashes  out  in  the  records  of 
the  divine  dealings  with  Israel !  What  is  it  but  the  law 
of  vicarious  sacrifice  which  underlies  the  words  of  the 
prophet!  "In  all  their  afflictions  He  was  affiicted,  and 
the  angel  of  His  presence  saved  them;  in  His  love  and 
pity  He  redeemed  them  and  bore  them  and  carried 
them  all  the  days  of  old."  Or,  in  those  words  of  the 
Psalmist,  "  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the 
Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  Him."  Or,  in  those  consoling 
assurances  of  Isaiah,  "Fear  not,  for  I  have  redeemed 
thee.  When  thou  passest  through  the  waters  I  will  be 
with  thee;  and  through  the  rivers,  they  shall  not  over- 
flow thee.  ...  I,  even  I,  am  He  that  blotteth  out  thy 
transgressions  for  mine  own  sake  and  will  not  remember 
thy  sins." 

In  the  beautiful  words  of  an  author  already  quoted: 
"It  is  as  if  there  were  a  cross  unseen,  standing  on  its 
undiscovered  hiU,  far  back  in  the  ages,  out  of  which 
were  sounding  always  just  the  same  deep  voice  of  suf- 
fering love  and  patience  that  was  heard  by  mortal  ears 
from  the  sacred  hill  of  Calvary." 

The  God  of  the  Old  Testament,  then,  is  the  God  of  the 
New,  only  under  Christianity  His  nature  is  more  per- 
fectly and  gloriously  revealed,  because  the  fulness  of 
the  time  had  come  when  the  world  could  receive  the 


I 


The  Lamb  Slain  from  the  Foundation     239 

higher  teaching.  And  we  ought  to  think  of  Him  as  the 
same  from  the  beginning  as  we  see  Him  in  Christ — a 
Father  bending  with  anxious,  yearning  love  over  the 
world  which  He  had  made,  full  of  the  same  paternal 
tenderness  that  we  see  in  the  Incarnate  Redeemer, 
watching  through  the  ages  the  education  of  the  race, 
and  waiting  with  all  a  Father's  solicitude  for  the  time 
to  come  when  the  purpose  of  Eternal  Love  could  be 
accomplished  in  the  Licarnation,  the  Birth,  the  Life, 
the  Passion,  and  the  Death  of  the  Son  of  God. 

Let  us  then  clearly  recognize  and  firmly  hold  and  con- 
stantly realize  that  (I  quote  again  Bushnell's  strong 
words)  "  whatever  we  may  say,  or  hold,  or  believe  con- 
cerning the  vicarious  sacrifice  of  Christ,  we  are  to  affirm 
in  the  same  manner  of  God.  The  whole  Deity  is  in  it, 
in  it  from  eternity  and  will  to  eternity  be.  We  are  not 
to  conceive  that  our  blessed  Saviour  is  some  other  and 
better  side  of  Deity,  a  God  composing  and  satisfying 
God;  but  that  all  there  is  in  Him  expresses  God,  even 
as  He  is  and  has  been  of  old,  such  a  being  in  His  love 
that  He  must  needs  take  our  evils  on  His  feeling  and 
bear  the  burden  of  our  sin.  Nay,  there  is  a  cross  in  God, 
before  the  wood  is  seen  upon  Calvarij,  hid  in  God's  own 
virtue  itself,  struggling  on  heavily  in  burdened  feeling 
through  all  the  previous  ages,  and  struggling  as  heavily 
now  even  in  the  throne  of  the  worlds.  This,  too,  exactly 
is  the  cross  that  our  Christ  crucified  reveals  and  sets 
before  us.  Let  us  come  then  not  to  the  wood  alone,  not  to 
the  nails,  not  to  the  vinegar  and  the  gall,  not  to  the 
writMng  body  of  Jesus,  but  to  the  very  feehng  of  our 
God  and  there  take  shelter."  "God  was  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself."  Yea,  the  Lamb 
has  been  "slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.". 


WHO  SHALL  ROLL  AWAY  THE  STONE  FROM 
THE     SEPULCHRE? 


FOR   EASTER   DAY 


"And  they  said  among  themselves,  who  shall  roll  us  away  the  stone 
from  the  door  of  the  sepulchre  V — Mark  xvi.  3. 

Very  early  in  the  morning,  while  it  was  yet  dark, 
probably  on  the  9th  of  April,  a.d.  28,  a  little  company 
of  women  might  have  been  seen  hurrying  through  the 
yet  silent  streets  of  Jerusalem  in  the  direction  of  Calvary. 
There  is  unutterable  sorrow  written  on  their  faces,  for 
they  are  mourning  for  their  Master,  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
the  Prophet  of  Galilee,  who  had  been  crucified  and  slain 
the  Friday  before.  His  interment  had  been  hastily  and 
imperfectly  performed  because  of  the  approach  of  the 
Sabbath,  and  so  these  devoted  women  are  hastening 
to  His  sepulchre  bearing  a  store  of  spices  and  ointment 
for  the  embalming  of  His  body.  As  they  walk  on  they 
bethink  them  of  a  difficulty  which  till  now  had  not 
occurred  to  them.  A  great  stone  had  been  rolled  to 
the  door  of  the  sepulchre,  much  too  great  for  their 
weak  arms  to  move.     Who  shall  roll  it  away  f 

They  can  give  no  answer  to  their  question,  but,  with 
the  sublime  audacity  of  faith  they  keep  on  their  way, 
turning  the  question,  it  may  be,  into  a  prayer,  when 
suddenly  there  was  a  great  earthquake,  which  shook 
the  city  to  its  foundations,  and  a  mighty  angel  descended 
from  heaven  and  rolled  back  the  stone  from  the  door 

240 


Who  Shall  Roll  Away  the  Stone?        241 

of  the  sepulchre,  and  sat  upon  it,  herald  of  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  Prince  of  life.  Ignorant  of  this,  wondering 
and  trembling  at  the  portent,  the  faithful  women  press 
on  till  at  length  they  reach  the  sepulchre,  where,  when 
they  looked,  they  saw,  to  their  amazement,  that  the 
stone  was  already  rolled  away. 

Let  us,  my  brethren,  consider  this  question  which  so 
perplexed  those  devout  and  faithful  souls,  and  to  which 
thej^  found,  in  the  way  of  faith,  so  quick  and  complete 
an  answer. 

I.  Who  shall  roll  us  away  the  stone  from  the  sepulchre  f 
All,  this  was  no  new  question.  It  had  been  asked  long 
before  those  simple-hearted  Galilean  women  asked 
it.  Agonizing  grief,  anguished  doubt,  trembUng  fear 
mocking  unbehef  had  by  turns  been  asking  it  through 
all  the  ages.  Ay,  it  was  as  old  as  death.  From  the 
fatal  day  when  the  first  grave  was  dug  or  the  first  sepul- 
chre hewn,  the  human  heart  had  been  asking  it  eagerly, 
anxiously. 

The  tomb  seemed  to  shut  up  the  dead  within  bars  of 
adamant.  The  bereaved  heart  cried,  with  an  exceed- 
ing bitter  cry,  for  access  to  its  dead,  but  there  was  the 
great  stone  of  doubt  closing  up  the  way.  It  would  fain 
penetrate  the  secrets  of  the  grave,  but  there  was  the 
great  stone  against  the  door. 

Listen  and  you  will  hear  the  anxious  inquiry  echoing 
dowTi  the  long-drawn  aisles  of  the  ages  in  tones  which 
often  have  in  them  the  accent  of  despair,  "  Who  shall 
roll  away  the  stone  from  the  sepulchre  f  " 

Eagerly  the  people  ask  it,  and  earnestly  the  wise  men 
debate  it— in  Egypt,  in  Babylonia,  in  Assyria,  in  Greece, 
in  Rome,  in  Alexandria.  But  no  answer  is  found.  The 
stone  is  too  great  for  human  hands  to  move.     In  vain 


242         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

reason  and  philosophy  strive  to  roll  it  away.  School 
after  school  essay  the  task.  The  mightiest  intellects 
exhaust  themselves  in  efforts  to  remove  it,  but  to  no 
purpose. 

From  time  to  time,  indeed,  the  claim  is  put  forward 
that  now  at  length  success  has  been  achieved,  but 
when  the  sorrow-stricken  mourner  repairs  to  the  spot 
where  his  dead  are  laid  he  finds  that  the  claim  is  false; 
the  argument  for  immortality  is  inconclusive;  doubt 
is  still  stronger  than  hope;  death  is  still  conqueror;  the 
great  stone  lies  still  unmoved  against  the  door  of  the 
sepulchre. 

Do  you  question  it?  Go,  then,  to  ancient  Athens  in 
the  days  of  her  beauty  and  her  glory  and  you  will  hear 
the  inconclusiveness  of  the  argument  for  immortality 
proclaimed  by  her  philosophers,  by  her  statesmen,  by 
her  dramatists,  while  not  a  whisper  of  the  hope  of  resur- 
rection is  audible  in  all  the  literature  of  Greece. 

When  Pericles  would  comfort  his  countrymen  for  the 
sons  they  had  lost  in  battle  he  intimates  no  hope  of 
immortality,  but  bids  them  look  forward  to  the  time 
when  in  sons  yet  unborn  they  might  forget  their  dead. 

Plato,  indeed,  true  to  the  instinct  of  immortality, 
constructed  a  splendid  argument  for  a  future  life,  but 
all  that  he  claimed  to  establish  was  the  probability  of 
so  glorious  a  hope,  and  when  Aristotle,  his  illustrious 
pupil,  came  to  review  it  with  his  pitiless,  passionless 
logic,  he  pronounced  it  a  failure,  declaring  that  death 
is  formidable  because  it  excludes  hope :  there  is  nothing 
good  or  evil  beyond  it. 

That  was  indeed  a  sublime  guess  of  Euripides,  "  Who 
knows  if  to  live  be  death,  and  to  die  be  Ufe?"  It  sounds 
strangely  like  the  utterance  of  the  Christian  apostle  cen- 


Who  Shall  Roll  Away  the  Stone?        243 

turies  later,  but  it  was  received  with  derisive  laughter 
by  the  Athenian  populace,  and  made  the  jest  of  the 
comic  poets. 

Or,  go  descend  into  those  ancient  tombs  which  have 
been  excavated  and  explored  in  our  day  at  Mycenae,  at 
Athens,  and  other  places.  Here  we  have  as  it  were  a 
statue  of  the  Greek  mind  in  the  presence  of  death.  And 
what  are  its  features?  Ah,  its  eyes  are  turned  not 
upward  to  heaven,  but  downward  to  the  grave.  It 
looks  not  forward  to  the  future  in  hope,  but  backward 
to  the  past  in  vain  regret.  Its  brow  is  not  lifted  up  to 
the  skies  and  lit  up  by  the  radiance  of  immortality,  but 
rather  it  is  shadowed  with  gloom  as  it  bends  to  earth 
seeking  to  gather  up  in  memory's  urn  the  ashes  of  the 
life  that  is  gone. 

Or,  yet  again,  go  to  ancient  Rome  and  inquire  of 
those  great  philosophers,  Seneca  and  Marcus  Aurelius 
and  Epictetus,  their  opinion  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  and  they  will  tell  you  that ' '  great  men  avow  rather 
than  prove  so  acceptable  a  doctrine,"  while  the  greatest 
of  Roman  orators  says  of  Plato's  argument,  "I  have 
often  pondered  it,  but,  I  know  not  how  it  is,  while  I  read 
I  assent  to  it,  but  when  I  have  laid  down  the  book  and 
begun  to  tliink  with  myself  concerning  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  all  that  assent  vanishes."  (Tusc.  Disp.,  I. 
xi.  24.) 

Thus  futile  were  the  efforts  of  reason  and  philosophy 
to  roll  away  the  stone  from  the  door  of  the  sepulchre, 
even  when  reinforced  by  the  instincts  of  the  human 
heart  and  by  the  teachings  of  the  various  religions  of  the 
world.  Even  the  revelation  given  to  the  chosen  people, 
which  unquestionably  contained  distinct  intimations  of 
immortality,  could  not  repress  the  doubt  nor   dispel 


244        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

the  darkness  that  hung  about  the  tomb.  The  very 
heroes  of  the  faith  and  the  inspired  psahnists  fall  at 
times  into  the  prevailing  gloom  and  uncertainty.  "  If 
a  man  die  shall  he  live  again?"  questions  the  patriarch 
Job.  "  In  death  no  man  remembereth  thee,"  laments 
one  of  the  sweet  singers  of  Israel,  "  and  who  shall  give 
thee  thanks  in  the  pit?"  "Wilt  Thou  show  wonders 
to  the  dead?  Shall  the  dead  arise  and  praise  Thee?" 
And  the  best  of  the  kings,  godly  Hezekiah,  exclaims: 
"  The  grave  cannot  praise  Thee,  death  cannot  celebrate 
Thee:  they  that  go  down  into  the  pit  cannot  hope  for 
Thy  truth." 

Thus  the  stone  lay  still  at  the  door  of  the  sepulchre 
when  Christ  came,  even  in  Judea,  even  in  Jerusalem,  the 
holy  city.  Moses  and  David  and  Isaiah  had  shaken  it, 
had  moved  it,  had  let  in  some  rays  of  light,  but  they 
had  not  rolled  it  away. 

In  truth  no  human  hand  could  roll  it  away.  None 
but  God  could  do  it.  But  He  has  done  it,  blessed  be 
His  holy  name!  He  did  it  once  for  all,  that  first  Easter 
morning  when  He  sent  His  angel  to  roll  away  the  stone 
from  the  door  of  the  sepulchre  of  Christ.  Light  enterecl 
the  sepulchres  of  all  God's  children  when  it  entered  \ 
His.  The  empty  tomb  of  Christ  dispels  forever  the 
doubt  of  immortality.  The  resurrection  of  Christ 
throws  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  whole  question  of  the 
future  life.  ''Life  and  immortality  were  brought  to 
light"  in  the  gospel  of  the  risen  Christ.  The  dark 
valley  was  made  luminous  with  heaven's  light,  and  the 
future  life  became  a  radiant  reality.  The  hope  of 
immortality  and  resurrection  from  the  dead  ceased  to 
be  a  mere  vision,  a  dream,  an  unsubstantial  shadow, 
and  became  a  "living  hope" — distinct,  real,  pulsating 


Who  Shall  Roll  Away  the  Stone?         245 

with  life  and  energy,  and  breathing  of  its  life  into 
myriads  of  human  hearts. 

Do  you  ask,  How  does  the  resurrection  of  Christ  work 
such  great  things  f  I  answer,  Because  it  presents  us 
with  a  clearly  established  and  indubitable  instance  both 
of  immortality  and  of  resurrection.  Experience  here 
comes  to  the  aid  of  reason  and  instinct,  and  proves  that 
death  does  not  end  all,  that  a  human  soul  has  survived 
the  stupendous  and  awful  dissolution  which  then  takes 
place,  that  the  conscious,  personal  being  lives  after  it 
is  separated  from  the  body,  and  that  the  body  itself, 
though  smitten  down  by  the  hand  of  the  dread  de- 
stroyer Death,  may  yet  rise  again  in  a  new  and  more 
perfect  organization,  not  a  body  of  flesh  and  blood,  but 
a  spiritual  body. 

And  so  what  had  been  an  unproved  speculation — an 
insecure  conclusion  of  metaphysics — or  at  best  a  long- 
ing, an  instinct,  a  ''fond  desire,"  of  the  human  heart, 
becomes  in  the  risen  Christ  a  palpable,  visible,  sensible 
fact,  of  which  eyes  and  ears  and  hands  are  witnesses. 

In  the  light  of  this  new  fact  logic  ceases  to  oppose 
the  instinct  of  immortality  and  the  larger  hope  of  rea- 
son, and  hastens  to  add  the  weight  of  her  testimony  to 
their  truth,  because,  one  instance  of  the  survival  of 
death  and  the  fact  of  resurrection  being  thus  established, 
it  becomes  in  the  highest  degree  reasonable  to  anticipate 
immortality  and  resurrection  for  the  race. 

The  resurrection  of  Christ,  let  us  remember,  was  not, 
like  that  of  Lazarus,  or  the  daughter  of  Jairus,  or  the 
son  of  the  widow  of  Nain,  a  return  to  this  mortal  life, 
with  its  conditions  and  limitations,  and  its  final  sub- 
jection again  to  death;  no,  for  as  the  apostle  says, 
"  Christ  being  raised  from  the  dead  dieth  no  more;  death 


246         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

hath  no  more  dominion  over  Him."  His  resurrection, 
therefore,  was  unique;  it  stands  alone;  it  is  the  one 
instance  in  all  history  of  the  complete  and  final  con- 
quest of  death.  In  it  we  see  humanity  triumphant 
over  the  last  enemy,  over  the  grave,  over  corruption. 
It  culminates,  not  in  a  second  subjection  to  death,  but 
in  the  glorious  ascension  to  the  right  hand  of  God.  And 
so  the  great  stone  of  doubt  is  forever  rolled  away  from 
the  door  of  the  sepulchre. 

II.  But  some  man  may  say,  "  In  arguing  thus  you  are 
assuming  the  truth  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ.  You 
are  taking  for  granted  that  the  women  did  indeed  find 
the  stone  rolled  away  from  His  sepulchre,  whereas  there 
is  the  crux  of  the  whole  question,  Was  that  stone  rolled 
away?  We  believe  that  it  was  too  heavy  to  be  rolled 
away;  that  it  never  has  been  rolled  away;  that  it  lies 
still  against  the  door  of  His  sepulchre.  Christ  is  not 
risen.  His  resurrection  was  barred  by  the  immutable 
laws  of  the  universe — the  law  of  death,  the  law  of 
decay,  the  law  of  dissolution,  the  law  of  disintegration. 
Who  then,  man  or  angel,  could  roll  away  the  stone?" 

If  this  question  is  asked  in  contemptuous  scorn,  or 
in  the  vanity  of  a  self-sufficient  pride,  the  Christian 
teacher  will  attempt  no  answer,  because  the  man  has 
already  prejudged  the  case.  But  it  may  be  asked  in 
all  sincerity  and  candor  by  one  who  is  seeking  for  light, 
who  desires  to  be  loyal  to  truth,  and  whose  mind  is  there- 
fore open  to  conviction.  Such  an  one  may  be  profoundly 
impressed  with  the  moral  beauty  of  Christianity,  with 
the  sublimity  of  Christ's  teaching,  with  the  majesty, 
the  purity,  yea,  the  perfection  of  His  character,  and 
yet  he  may  stumble  at  the  stupendous  miracle  of  the 
resurrection.     He  cannot  conceive  of  such  an  event. 


Who  Shall  Roll  Away  the  Stone?        247 

His  mind  vainly  wrestles  with  the  thought.     For  him 
the  stone  is  still  there. 

Friend,  I  reply,  there  are  many  things  in  heaven 
and  earth  not  dreamed  of  in  your  philosophy  or  mine. 
There  are  processes  in  nature  we  shall  vainly  strive  to 
picture  to  our  minds,  or  to  form  any  distinct  conception 
of.  And  yet  there  they  are — plain  and  patent  facts, 
once  unknowm,  once  denied,  once  pronounced  incon- 
ceivable, impossible — yet  now  revealed  by  investiga- 
tion, brought  to  light  by  the  gospel  of  modern  science, 
and  so  confessed,  acknowledged  as  true  by  the  whole 
world  of  students. 

It  is  the  shallowest  dogmatism,  against  reason  and 
against  the  scientific  spirit,  to  deny  the  resurrection 
because  we  cannot  conceive  it,  because  we  cannot  under- 
stand it.  St.  Paul  rebukes  the  man  who  demands ' '  How 
are  the  dead  raised  up?  and  with  what  body  do  they 
come?"  by  pointing  him  to  a  familiar  and  acknowledged 
fact  of  nature.  "  Thou  fOol,"  he  says,  "  that  which  thou 
sowest  is  not  quickened  except  it  die;  and  that  which 
thou  sowest,  thou  sowest  not  that  body  that  shall  be, 
but  bare  grain,  it  may  be  of  wheat,  or  of  some  other 
grain,  but  God  giveth  it  a  body  as  it  hath  pleased  Him; 
and  to  every  seed  its  owti  body." 

But  it  will  be  rejoined,  perhaps,  the  resurrection  is 
in  conflict  with  science;  the  modern  idea  of  the  world 
forbids  us  to  believe  it. 

I  answer,  the  patient  induction  of  facts  has  many  a 
time  dispelled  a  priori  objections  in  the  realm  of  science. 
The  impossible  has  been  shown  to  be  actual.  What 
men  have  said  was  opposed  to  science  has  been  shown 
to  be  one  of  the  stubborn  facts  to  which  science  has  been 
obliged  to  adjust  itself.     The  facts  which  the  '  Chal- 


248         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

lenger'  developed  in  her  deep-sea  soundings  round  the 
oceans  of  the  globe  corrected  very  materially  the  theories 
of  geologists. 

And  this  dogmatic  a  priori  objection  to  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Christ  must  in  like  manner  be  abandoned  in 
the  light  of  the  verified  fact  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  did 
rise  from  the  dead.  If  the  so-called  "  modern  idea  of  the 
world"  is  inconsistent  with  the  resurrection  of  Christ, 
then  that  idea  requires  to  be  corrected  in  the  light  of 
this,  which  is  one  of  the  best-attested  facts  in  all  the 
long  record  of  human  history. 

Ah,  it  is  not  science  but  the  misreading  of  science 
which  interposes  this  so-called  insuperable  barrier  in 
the  way  of  believing  the  resurrection.  Science  recog- 
nizes that  ' '  we  live  in  a  world  of  mystery,  and  there  is 
not  a  problem  in  the  simplest  and  most  exact  of  her 
departments  which  does  not  speedily  lead  us  to  a  tran- 
scendental problem  that  we  can  neither  solve  nor  elude. ' ' 
Sciolists  affirm,  in  the  name  of  Science,  that  the  life  of 
the  soul  ends  with  the  life  of  the  body,  but  in  so  speak- 
ing they  take  her  name  in  vain,  for,  as  a  true  scientist, 
Mr.  John  Fiske  says,  ''The  materialistic  assumption 
that  the  life  of  the  soul  ends  with  the  life  of  the  body 
is  perhaps  the  most  colossal  instance  of  baseless  assump- 
tion that  is  known  to  the  history  of  philosophy." 

Now  look  again  for  a  moment  at  the  narrative  of  the 
resurrection.  The  women  were  in  perplexity  about 
the  great  stone  before  the  sepulchre.  Who  should  roll 
it  away?  But  when  they  came  to  the  spot  and  looked, 
lo !  the  stone  was  already  rolled  away ! 

So  will  it  happen  to  the  honest  and  earnest  seeker  after 
the  truth  concerning  the  resurrection.  Let  him  go  to 
the  sepulchre.     Let  him  look  well  at  the  evidence.     Let 


Who  Shall  Roll  Away  the  Stone?        249 

him  examine  the  witnesses.  Let  him  carefully  study 
the  facts  and  he  will  find  that  the  stone  is  already 
rolled  away.  There  is  the  empty  tomb.  There  is  the 
blood-sealed  testimony  of  such  men  as  Paul  and  Peter 
and  John.  There  is  the  Christian  Church,  in  all  its 
majestic  proportions,  built  upon  the  empty  sepulchre, 
its  very  foundation-stone  being  the  fact  that  Christ  is 
risen.  There  is  the  light  of  a  new  faith  and  a  new  hope, 
the  sublimest,  the  most  inspiring  that  has  ever  glowed 
in  the  heart  of  man,  and  lo!  it  streams  forth  from  the 
open  sepulchre  In  short,  the  evidence  is  overwhelming 
that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  did  rise  from  the  dead. 

When  I  said  a  moment  ago  that  this  was  one  of  the 
best-attested  facts  on  the  pages  of  history  I  was  not 
using  the  language  of  reckless  assertion.  Such  is  the 
deliberate  judgment  of  not  a  few  of  the  best  and  most 
careful  reasoners.  One  of  these,  a  profound  and  cau- 
tious thinker,  says,  "Taking  all  the  evidence  together, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  there  is  no  single  historic 
incident  better  or  more  variously  supported  than  the 
resurrection  of  Christ.  Nothing  but  the  antecedent 
assumption  that  it  must  be  false  could  have  suggested 
the  idea  of  deficiency  in  the  proof  of  it."  * 

In  conclusion.  Christian  people,  may  I  incite  you  to 
gratitude  and  praise  for  the  great  and  inspiring  fact 
to  which  this  Easter  season  gives  emphasis — that  the 
stone  has  been  rolled  away  from  the  door  of  the  sepul- 
chre, the  stone  of  doubt,  the  stone  of  darkness,  the  stone 
of  fear?  We  rejoice  to-day  in  the  revealed  certainty 
of  immortaUty  and  in  the  glorious  expectation  of  a 
resurrection  unto  life  eternal.  We  bid  farewell  to 
doubt  and  uncertainty  concerning  the  future  life  and 
*  Westcott. 


250         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

what  it  may  have  in  store  for  us.  We  know  in  whom 
we  have  beheved.  We  feel  the  power  of  His  resurrection 
in  our  own  souls.  The  Christ  hfe  within  us  is  the  seal 
and  the  assurance  of  His  resurrection  and  of  ours.  "  I 
live — yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me."  Death  is  no 
longer  the  king  of  terrors,  but  the  messenger  of  the 
King  of  glory.  "  For  we  know  that  if  our  earthly 
house  of  this  tabernacle  be  dissolved,  we  have  a  build- 
ing of  God,  an  house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in 
the  heavens." 

Yes,  for  in  the  light  that  streams  on  Easter  morning 
from  that  open  sepulchre  of  Christ  whence  the  stone  has 
been  rolled  away  we  see  the  divine  significance  of  this 
frail  human  life  of  ours.  Out  of  its  weakness  shall  come 
forth  eternal  power.  Out  of  its  dishonor  shall  rise 
heavenly  glory.  Out  of  its  corruptibility  shall  rise  in- 
corruption.  Out  of  the  natural  body  shall  rise  the 
spiritual  body.  The  mortal  shall  put  on  immortality, 
and  death  shall  be  swallowed  up  in  victory. 


THE  EVIDENCE  FOR  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELI- 
GION SUFFICIENT,  THOUGH  NOT  DEMON- 
STRATIVE 

FOR   THE    FIRST   SUNDAY   AFTER   EASTER 

"  Then  came  the  Jews  round  about  Him,  and  said  unto  Him,  '  How 
long  dost  thou  make  us  to  doubt  ?  If  thou  be  the  Christ,  tell  us 
plainly.'  " — John  x.  24 

These  words  bring  before  us  a  very  striking  scene 
iv'hich  transpired  in  Solomon's  porch  at  Jerusalem.  On 
one  side  of  the  picture  we  see  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the 
prophet  and  teacher;  on  the  other  the  prominent  men 
of  the  Jewish  nation,  who  have  come  in  a  body  to  re- 
monstrate ■wdth  Him  because  He  kept  them  in  sus- 
pense upon  the  real  nature  of  His  claims.  Was  He 
the  Christ  or  not?  "How  long,"  they  demand,  "dost 
Thou  make  us  to  doubt?  If  Thou  be  the  Christ,  tell 
us  plainly. " 

Jesus  answers  that  He  had  already  told  them  and 
they  believed  not,  and  further  reminded  them  that  the 
works  that  He  had  done  among  them  bore  sufficient 
witness  to  His  mission  as  the  Christ. 

In  fact  there  was  no  excuse  whatever  for  this  com- 
plaint of  the  Jews,  for  Jesus  had  pubhcly  proclaimed 
Himself  the  Light  of  the  World,  the  Bread  of  Life,  the 
Water  of  Life,  the  Good  Shepherd.  He  had  told  them 
that  He  was  the  Son  of  God,  whom  God  had  sent  into 
the  world  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  and  that  He 

251 


252         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

had  shared  the  glory  of  the  Father  before  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world.  So  plainly  had  He  asserted  His 
divinity  that  the  Jews  had  sought  to  stone  Him  as 
having  been  guilty  of  blasphemy. 

All  this  makes  clear  the  real  significance  of  their 
complaint.  It  was  an  attempt  to  excuse  themselves 
for  not  believing,  and  to  make  Him  responsible  for  it. 
"How  long  dost  Thou  make  us  to  doubt?"  And  it 
was  a  demand  for  other  evidence  than  He  had  yet 
given  of  His  Messiahship.  True,  He  had  opened  the 
eyes  of  the  blind,  He  had  healed  the  sick.  He  had  raised 
the  dead.  But  this  was  not  enough.  "Give  us  a  sign 
from  Heaven,"  they  had  said  on  a  certain  occasion, 
"and  we  will  believe."  And  when  He  hung  on  the 
cross  they  mocked  Him,  saying:  "If  He  be  the  King 
of  Israel,  let  Him  now  come  down  from  the  cross  and 
we  will  believe  Him ! " 

Now,  if  I  mistake  not,  my  brethren,  these  Jews  have 
many  successors  in  our  day  in  this  objection  which 
they  raised.  There  is  a  disposition  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  do  not  believe  the  Christian  religion  to  throw 
the  blame  of  their  unbelief  upon  the  Author  of  Chris- 
tianity. "How  long  dost  Thou  make  us  to  doubt?" 
We  are  not  to  blame  for  not  believing.  It  is  Thou 
that  makest  us  to  doubt. 

But  how?  Because  the  evidence  of  the  divine  mis- 
sion of  Christ — that  is,  of  the  truth  of  the  Christian 
religion — is  not  so  complete  and  so  overwhelming  as 
to  compel  every  intelligent  man  to  believe.  In  the 
opinion  of  these  persons  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity 
ought  to  be  provable  like  a  proposition  in  Euclid.  "  God 
ought  to  give  us  demonstrative  evidence  of  its  truth, 
and  if  He  has  not  given  us  this  we  are  not  responsible 


Evidence  for  the  Christian  Religion  Sufficient  253 

for  not  believing.  It  is  He  who,  by  withholding  that 
evidence,  '*  makes  us  to  doubt. "  But  consider  whether 
this  demand  for  demonstrative  evidence  is  reasonable. 

In  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life  we  shape  our  conduct, 
not  by  the  demonstrated  certainty  that  such  and  such 
a  course  of  action  is  wisest  and  best  (that  is  seldom 
possible),  but  by  the  probability  that  it  is  so.  We 
find  ourselves  compelled  to  reflect,  to  consider  the 
probable  result  of  our  actions,  and  so  to  form  a  judg- 
ment  as  to  what  is  best.  And  this  constitutes  one  of 
the  most  important  means  for  the  development  of 
character.  If  it  were  otherwise,  if  we  had  demon- 
strative evidence  beforehand  as  to  the  consequences 
of  each  act  of  life  or  of  each  course  of  action  we  would 
become  mere  machines;  moral  development  would  be- 
come impossible.  It  is  the  necessity  for  careful  con- 
sideration of  the  probable  results  of  different  lines  of 
action,  the  testing  of  the  moral  quality  of  this  or  that 
course  of  conduct,  the  weighing  of  the  consequences 
likely  to  ensue  to  ourselves  and  to  others — all  this  is 
an  intellectual  and  moral  discipline  which  builds  up 
character  and  develops  the  powers  of  manhood. 

Why,  then,  should  we  expect  or  demand  demon- 
strative evidence  when  called  upon  to  decide  whether 
we  will  accept  or  reject  the  Christian  religion?  If  the 
truth  of  Christianity  were  demonstrated  to  us  with 
the  rigorous  exactness  of  a  mathematical  theorem 
the  result  would  be  a  compulsory  belief  which  would 
have  no  moral  quality  whatever,  and  would  not  ad- 
vance us  a  single  step  toward  the  great  end  of  Chris- 
tian belief,  which  is  the  bringing  our  minds  and  hearts 
into  a  filial  relation  to  God  and  our  lives  into  conform- 
ity to  His  will.     This  compulsory  behef  would  be  as 


254        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

valueless  as  compulsory  virtue.  In  fact  virtue  by 
compulsion  is  as  destitute  of  virtuous  qualities  as  an 
artificial  flower  is  destitute  of  fragrance.  It  is  not  vir- 
tue at  all.  There  must  be  freedom  of  choice  in  order 
to  the  development  of  a  virtuous  disposition  of  char- 
acter. And  so  there  must  be  freedom  of  judgment  in 
order  to  the  attainment  of  any  faith  worthy  the  name. 
Belief  which  is  the  result  of  demonstrative  evidence 
can  have  no  moral  value,  any  more  than  the  belief 
that  two  and  two  make  four.  "The  devils  also 
believe  and  tremble."  But  the  belief  which  Christ 
demands  of  the  soul  is  such  a  trust  in  Him  as  will 
establish  in  the  heart  His  kingdom  of  love  and  grace, 
breathing  a  spirit  of  filial  confidence,  whereby  we  cry 
"Abba,  Father!" 

Let  me  next  ask  you  to  observe  that  the  fact  that 
the  evidence  of  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion  is 
moral  rather  than  demonstrative,  is  itself  a  moral  test 
and  a  means  of  sifting  the  characters  of  those  to  whom 
it  is  addressed. 

Our  Lord  said  to  the  Pharisees  when  they  turned 
from  Him  in  unbelief:  ''He  that  is  of  God  heareth  My 
words.  Ye  therefore  hear  them  not,  because  ye  are  not  of 
God." 

Belief  in  Christ  is  then  largely  determined  by  elective 
affinity.  If  a  man  has  no  affinity  for  God,  for  truth, 
for  purity,  for  holiness  (let  me  rather  say  until  that 
affinity  is  developed),  he  will  see  no  beauty  in  the 
Saviour  of  the  world  that  he  should  desire  Him.  The 
moral  character  of  Christ,  the  wondrous  beauty  of  His 
teaching,  the  work  of  regeneration  He  has  wrought, 
the  uplifting  influence  of  the  Christian  Church — all  this 
makes  appeal  to  what  is  highest  and  noblest  in  human 


Evidence  for  the  Christian  Religion  Sufficient  255 

nature,  and  the  force  of  the  evidence  thus  given  to  the 
truth  of  Christianity  will  be  felt  just  in  proportion  as 
the  affinity  of  each  man  is  developed  to  moral  beauty 
and  goodness. 

The  ultimate  purpose  of  Christianity  is  moral.  It 
seeks  to  transform  men  into  the  Hkencss  of  Christ,  to 
restore  the  blurred  image  of  God  in  the  human  soul. 
According!}^  it  approaches  men  from  that  side  rather 
than  from  the  intellectual  side  of  their  nature.  With 
confidence  it  appeals  to  the  better  nature  of  men.  It 
holds  up  the  moral  beauty  of  Christ,  the  perfection  of 
His  moral  precepts  (which  find  their  response  and  their 
confirmation  in  the  depth  of  the  human  soul),  and  the 
moral  victories  He  has  won  and  is  ever  winning,  and 
it  counts  on  winning  men  by  the  attraction  of  these 
moral  influences — above  all  by  the  attraction  of  the 
Cross,  which  is  the  supremest  instance  of  self-sacrifice. 

Now  as  long  as  a  man  continues  insensible  to  the 
things  of  the  spirit,  or  at  least  to  their  supreme  im- 
portance, as  long  as  he  remains  immersed  in  the  things 
of  sense  and  of  the  flesh,  the  evidence  of  Christianity 
will  make  little  impression  upon  him,  because  it  ap- 
peals to  the  sense  of  moral  goodness,  which  is  really  a 
constituent  element  of  every  human  soul.  I  may  speak 
to  some  man  to-day  to  whom  the  evidence  of  Chris- 
tianity does  not  appeal.  Ah,  my  friend,  if  your  moral 
nature  were  thoroughly  awake,  surely  you  would  feel 
the  power  of  the  evidence  that  comes  from  such  a  spot- 
less character,  from  such  a  sublime  personality  as  that 
of  Jesus  Christ,  from  such  magnificent  moral  victories 
as  He  has  wrought  among  men.  You  would  begin  to 
feel  the  spell  of  His  life  and  His  words  and  His  work, 
and  you  would  presently  exclaim  to  yourself:  "Never 


256         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

man  spake  like  this  Man !  Never  man  lived  like  this 
Man !  Never  man  did  such  a  work  for  mankind  as  this 
Man!  Is  not  this  the  Christ?  Is  not  this  the  Son  of 
God?"  Surely  you  would  say  to  yourself  the  sub- 
limest  teaching  the  world  ever  heard  could  not  have 
proceeded  from  either  a  deceiver  or  from  one  self- 
deceived.  The  mightiest  agency  for  good  this  weary, 
sinful  earth  has  ever  known  could  not  have  proceeded 
from  any  but  a  divine  origin.  It  is  in  the  highest  de- 
gree probable  that  the  claims  of  Jesus  Christ  are  founded 
in  truth. 

On  the  other  hand,  so  long  as  your  better  and  higher 
nature  remains  dormant,  it  would  be  of  no  advantage 
whatever  to  you  to  be  given  demonstrative  proof  of 
the  reality  of  the  divine  mission  of  Jesus  Christ.  We 
have  the  authority  of  His  teaching  for  believing  that 
faith  cannot  be  forced  upon  men  by  external  evidence. 
"//  theij  hear  not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will 
they  believe  though  one  rose  from  the  dead."  Nor  would 
those  chief  priests  and  Pharisees  have  truly  believed 
in  Jesus  Christ  though  He  had,  in  response  to  their 
scoffing  taunt,  come  down  from  the  cross.  Nor,  again, 
if  they  refused  the  evidence  He  gave  them  by  His  words 
and  wondrous  works,  would  they  have  been  converted 
by  a  sign  from  Heaven. 

The  human  soul  cannot  be  brought  under  the  empire 
of  Christ  by  a  physical  portent  or  by  a  logical  demon- 
stration. It  must  be  won  by  truth,  by  goodness,  by 
the  beauty  of  holiness.  It  must  be  approached  from 
the  spiritual  as  well  as  the  intellectual  side. 

Consider,  finally,  that  the  evidence  which  God  has 
given  us  of  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion,  though 


Evidence  for  the  Christian  Religion  Sufficient  257 

not  so  overwhelming  as  to  compel  belief,  is  more  than 
sufficient  to  warrant  it. 

There  are  many  hnes  of  evidence,  each  of  which  may 
reasonably  be  held  to  establish  some  degree  of  proba- 
bility, and  all  of  which  combined  do  establish  a  very 
high  degree  of  probability  by  their  cumulative  weight. 

Let  us  glance  for  a  moment  at  some  of  these  lines  of 
evidence. 

1.  Christianity  appears  to  be  the  fulfilment  of  a  re- 
markable series  of  prophecies  recorded  in  the  sacred 
books  of  the  Jews — the  Old  Testament. 

2.  In  the  next  place,  Christianity  has  been  handed 
down  for  nearly  nineteen  centuries  in  writings  of  un- 
paralleled moral  sublimity. 

3.  These  writings  contain  records  of  miracles  WTOught 
in  attestation  of  the  truth  of  the  Christian  reUgion,  and 
we  have  satisfactory  evidence  that  many  who  professed 
to  be  witnesses  of  these  miracles  "passed  their  lives 
in  labors,  dangers,  and  sufferings,  voluntarily  under- 
gone in  attestation  of  the  truth  of  those  records." 

4.  One  of  these  miracles  stands  out  conspicuous 
above  all  the  rest — the  resurrection  of  Christ;  and  of 
this  we  may  say,  with  a  cautious  and  profound  living 
writer,  that  "there  is  no  single  historic  incident  better 
or  more  variously  supported." 

5.  The  Christian  Church  is  the  embodiment  of  the 
Christian  religion,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  an  institu- 
tion which  has  been  of  such  signal  benefit  to  mankind 
should  be  founded  upon  a  lie. 

6.  The  character  of  Christ.  It  is  of  such  transcen- 
dent beauty  and  majesty  as  that  it  cannot  be  classified 
with  other  human  characters.  It  appears  to  be  super- 
human. 


258        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

7.  The  plan  of  Christ  to  estabhsh  His  empire  over 
human  hearts  in  all  lands  and  in  all  ages.  It  has  no 
parallel,  and  its  success  vindicates  the  divine  power  of 
its  Author. 

8.  The  moral  teaching  of  Christ.  It  is  so  far  above 
and  apart  from  all  other  human  teaching,  so  funda- 
mentally distinct  from,  and  superior  to,  all  other,  that 
there  arises  in  the  mind  a  very  strong  probability  that 
it  is  superhuman,  transcending  all  possible  human  in- 
sight and  foresight. 

9.  Consider  the  work  of  Christ.  We  find  Him  wield- 
ing over  men  a  power  which  has  no  parallel  in  history, 
and  of  which  the  only  conceivable  explanation  is  that 
it  was  superhuman.  Under  this  head  reflect  upon  the 
marvellous  triumphs  of  Christianity  in  the  first  three 
centuries  of  its  propagation,  in  the  face  of  every  con- 
ceivable obstacle  that  malice  could  invent  or  unlimited 
power  set  in  motion.  Here  is  a  phenomenon  that  re- 
fuses to  take  its  place  in  any  process  of  natural  evolu- 
tion. Reflect  further  upon  the  moral  and  social  reforms 
which  the  religion  of  Christ  wrought  among  men.  Chris- 
tian history,  like  the  character  and  words  of  Christ, 
stands  unique  and  unparalleled.  Reflect,  finally,  upon 
the  power  which  Christ  wields  over  individual  souls — 
renovating  character,  transforming  men  from  slaves 
of  lust  and  self  to  servants  and  sons  of  God. 

These  are  some  of  the  lines  of  evidence  by  which  the 
truth  of  the  Christian  religion  is  supported.  The  very 
least  that  may  be  claimed  is  that  each  of  them  raises  a 
probability  that  Christianity  is  of  divine  origin.  Now, 
when  all  these  lines  of  evidence  are  brought  into  one 
focus,  the  probability  just  mentioned  rises  to  a  very 
high  degree;  and  the  obligation  to  accept  and  act  upon 


Evidence  for  the  Christian  Religion  Sufficient  259 

the  Christian  religion  should  be  recognized  by  every 
reasonable  man. 

The  cumulative  weight  of  all  these  probabilities  is 
not  only  sufficient  to  warrant  belief — it  imperatively 
demands  it;  and  he  who  in  the  face  of  such  evidence 
withholds  his  allegiance  to  Christianity,  on  the  ground 
that  the  evidence  is  not  demonstrative,  is  guilty  of  an 
offence  both  against  prudence  and  against  reason. 

In  conclusion  let  me  guard  against  a  misapprehen- 
sion. It  may  be  thought  that  in  resting  the  claim  of 
Christianity  to  acceptance  vipon  moral — that  is,  prob- 
able— evidence,  in  not  undertaking  a  vigorous  demon- 
stration of  its  truth  we  leave  the  result  of  the  inquiry 
uncertain,  having  attained  nothing  more  than  a  high 
degree  of  probability  that  the  Christian  religion  is  true. 
This  I  grant  would  be  a  lame  and  impotent  conclusion 
upon  such  a  momentous  subject,  concerning  which,  more 
than  upon  any  other,  man  craves  absolute  certainty. 

But  this  high  degree  of  probabiUty  is  not  the  con- 
clusion of  the  matter,  but  rather  the  beginning,  the 
first  step,  the  premise  upon  which  the  conclusion  is  to 
rest.  He  who,  obeying  the  rule  of  experience  which 
makes  probability  the  guide  of  life,  accepts  the  Chris- 
tian religion  and  endeavors  to  obey  its  precepts,  very 
soon  advances  from  probability  to  certainty.  More 
and  more,  as  he  submits  himself  to  the  influence  of 
Christ,  he  obtains  personal  experience  of  the  truth  of 
His  rehgion.  By  seeking  to  do  God's  will  he  comes  to 
know  of  the  doctrine.  And  so  a  new  and  perfectly 
conclusive  form  of  evidence,  the  evidence  of  experi- 
ence, rises  like  a  sun  upon  him,  dispelling  clouds  and 
darkness  and  doubt,  and  flooding  Ms  soul  with  the  light 
of  certainty  and  assurance. 


26o         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

He  no  longer  "stretches  lame  hands  of  faith,"  but 
grasps  with  confidence  the  Cross  of  his  Redeemer.  He 
no  longer  "gropes"  as  one  in  the  dark,  but  walks  with 
a  firm  step  in  the  light  of  God.  He  is  no  longer  like 
one  gathering  "dust  and  chaff,"  but  rejoices  in  the 
divine  and  eternal  significance  of  this  fleeting  life.  He 
no  longer  "faintly  trusts  the  larger  hope,"  but  rejoices 
in  hope  of  the  glory  of  God,  clings  with  confidence  to 
the  Christian  hope  as  the  sure  anchor  of  the  soul,  be- 
cause he  knows  it  is  a  hope  full  of  immortality. 


THE  CONCLUSIVENESS  OF  PERSONAL  CHRIS- 
TIAN EXPERIENCE  IN  REFUTATION  OF 
UNBELIEF 

FOR  THE  SECOND  SUNDAY  AFTER  EASTER 

"  The  man  answered  and  said  unto  them,  Why  herein  is  a  mar- 
vellous thing,  that  ye  know  not  from  whence  He  is,  and  yet  He 
hath  opened  mine  eyes. " — John  ix.  30. 

These  are  the  words  of  a  blind  man  whom  Jesus  had 
healed.  Wliat  made  the  miracle  the  more  remarkable 
was  the  fact  that  the  man  had  been  born  blind.  But 
the  Pharisees  were  offended  because  it  was  done  on  the 
Sabbath  day.  So  they  sent  for  him  and  questioned 
him,  demanding  how  he  had  been  healed.  When  he 
told  them  they  refused  to  believe  that  he  had  been  born 
blind  till  they  had  summoned  his  parents  and  asked 
them,  "Is  this  your  son,  who  ye  say  was  born  Wind? 
How  then  doth  he  now  see?" 

At  last  they  were  compelled  to  accept  both  facts  as 
true — that  the  man  had  really  been  born  blind,  and 
that  he  had  really  been  cured  of  his  blindness  by  Jesus 
of  Nazareth. 

But  they  straightway  assured  him  that  Jesus  was  one 
worthy  of  no  honor  or  respect.  "  '  Give  God  the  praise/ 
they  said,  'we  know  that  this  man  is  a  sinner.'  We, 
the  great  men  of  the  Jewish  people,  to  whom  everybody 
looks  up,  who  are  the  recognized  leaders  and  teachers  of 

26x 


262        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

the  nation,  give  you  our  assurance  that  this  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  is  a  transgressor  of  the  law,  and  unworthy  of 
regard.  He  is,  in  fact,  a  nobody,  a  mere  upstart,  a  de- 
ceiver of  the  people.  We  know  that  God  spake  by 
Moses;  as  for  this  fellow,  we  know  not  from  whence 
He  is." 

Now  hear  the  answer  of  the  poor  beggar  to  these  great 
men,  the  latchet  of  whose  shoes  he  was  unworthy  to  un- 
loose. "Why,"  says  he,  boldly  and  with  indignant 
sarcasm,  "herein  is  a  marvellous  thing,  that  ye  know 
not  from  whence  He  is,  and  yet  He  hath  opened  mine 
eyes!"  Seldom,  indeed,  was  a  man  found  bold  enough 
to  brave  the  wrath  of  the  Pharisees.  The  weapon  of 
excommunication  which  they  wielded  was  a  terrible 
one,  and  men  might  well  tremble  for  fear  of  it. 

What  was  it,  then,  which  made  this  man  so  confident 
in  the  face  of  their  denial  of  the  worthiness  of  Jesus,  and 
so  fearless  of  the  consequences  of  challenging  their  judg- 
ment? 

The  answer  is  plain.  He  had  had  personal  expe- 
rience of  the  power  of  the  prophet  of  Nazareth  to  heal. 
He  had  received  from  Him  an  inestimable  boon — the 
restoration  of  his  sight.  Full  of  the  exultant  joy  of 
seeing  for  the  first  time  the  light  of  the  sun  and  the 
beauty  of  the  green  earth,  he  repudiated  with  scorn  the 
idea  that  the  man  who  could  work  such  a  miracle  could 
be  other  than  God's  chosen  representative.  "  Since  the 
world  began  was  it  not  heard  that  any  man  opened  the 
eyes  of  one  that  was  born  blind.  If  this  man  were  not 
of  God  He  could  do  nothing." 

Here  was  the  witness  of  his  conscience  which  nothing 
could  overthrow.  These  Pharisees  were  reputed  wise 
men.    They  held  distinguished  office.     They  exercised 


The  Conclusiveness  of  Christian  Experience  263 

great  authority.  But  all  this  was  as  stubble  in  the  flame 
of  that  inward  conviction  that  such  a  mighty  work  of 
benevolence  as  he  had  experienced  was  the  seal  of  a 
divine  mission.  ''  You  who  sit  in  Moses'  seat,  and  are 
reputed  the  hghts  and  guides  of  the  people,  assure  me 
that  this  prophet  of  Galilee  is  a  person  of  no  position,  of 
no  reputation,  a  nobody.  I  answer,  '  Herein  is  a  mar- 
vellous thing,  that  ye  know  not  from  whence  He  is,  and 
yet  He  hath  opened  mine  eyes!'  I  put  this  blessed, 
this  undeniable,  this  ineffaceable  experience  of  mine 
against  all  your  learning  and  all  your  authority.  *I 
was  blind,  but  now  I  see ' — nothing  can  change  that 
fact,  and  in  that  I  find  the  sure  proof  that  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth is  from  God  and  of  God." 

This  incident,  my  brethren,  suggests  a  subject  of 
great  practical  importance — I  mean  the  conclusiveness 
of  personal  experience  of  the  healing,  enlightening, 
saving  power  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  establish  a  firm  and  un- 
conquerable conviction  of  the  reality  of  His  divine 
mission  among  men.  In  all  ages  that  authority  and 
that  mission  have  been  challenged,  as  they  were  chal- 
lenged by  the  Pharisees  in  the  case  before  us.  Doubt 
and  unbelief,  now  in  one  form,  now  in  another,  now  in 
the  name  of  religion,  now  in  the  name  of  reason,  now  in 
the  name  of  philosophy,  now  in  the  name  of  science, 
have  rejected  His  claims  to  be  the  Son  of  God  and  the 
Saviour  of  the  world. 

Now  what  I  have  to  suggest  this  morning  is  that  the 
most  complete  solvent  of  this  doubt,  the  most  conclu- 
sive refutation  of  this  unbelief,  is  to  be  found  in  an 
appeal  to  experience. 

This  may  be  illustrated  both  in  the  experience  of  the 
race  and  of  the  individual. 


264     :    The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

I  hear  the  spirit  of  Antichrist,  which  is  the  spirit  of 
unbelief,  challenging  the  divine  mission  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  calling  upon  mankind  to  reject  His  claims.  And  I 
hear  the  race  of  man  reply  as  the  man  who  had  been 
blind  replied  to  the  Pharisees,  Why  herein  is  a  marvel- 
lous thing,  that  you  know  not  from  whence  this  Man 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  is,  and  yet  He  hath  opened  mine  eyes ! 
You  bid  me  repudiate  His  authority  and  think  scorn 
of  His  claims,  and  yet  I  have  had  experience  of  the 
reality  of  His  enlightening,  saving  powers! 

His  religion  has  wrought  among  men  social  and  moral 
reforms  so  marvellous  that  nothing  but  the  reality  of 
His  divine  mission  can  account  for  them. 

When  He  entered  into  the  world  the  masses  of  man- 
kind were  unspeakably  degraded;  the  moral  springs  of 
society  were  polluted;  darkness  both  for  time  and  for 
eternity  overhung  the  horizon  of  the  world.  But  His 
coming  changed  the  whole  aspect  and  atmosphere  of 
things!  The  light  that  shone  from  His  face  irradiated 
the  darkness  with  bright  beams  of  hope  for  the  poor,  for 
the  oppressed,  for  the  slave !  His  voice  brought  deliver- 
ance to  the  captive  and  the  opening  of  the  prison-door 
to  them  that  were  bound ! 

It  was  He  who  broke  down  the  walls  of  national 
jealousy  and  hatred,  and  proclaimed  the  brotherhood  of 
men,  and  so  introduced  a  leaven  of  loving-kindness 
which  slowly  permeated  and  steadily  transformed 
society.  He  asserted  for  every  man  his  sonship  in  the 
family  of  God,  and  so  laid  the  foundations  of  personal 
liberty  and  individual  rights.  He  threw  His  protecting 
segis  around  the  poor,  and  the  weak,  and  the  prisoner, 
and  claimed  for  them  sympathy  and  justice  and  charity. 
He  unspeakably  ameliorated  the  condition  of  the  slave, 


The  Conclusiveness  of  Christian  Experience  265 

affirming  that  he  was  not  a  chattel,  but  a  brother  in  the 
family  of  God,  and  so  sowed  the  seed  whose  harvest  was 
the  abolition  of  slavery.  He  struck  the  fetters  from 
the  limbs  of  woman,  and  restored  her  to  her  rightful 
place  as  the  helpmeet  and  companion  of  man.  He  took 
from  the  father  the  power  of  life  and  death  over  his 
children,  and  made  the  paternal  relation  holy  and  beau- 
tiful. He  gave  to  marriage  a  sacredness  which  it  was 
sacrilege  to  violate  and  elevated  love  from  the  depths  of 
sensuality  to  the  throne  of  purity.  He  abolished  the 
cruel  and  bloody  games  of  the  gladiatorial  arena  and 
drove  from  the  stage  the  licentious  shows  which  so 
deeply  depraved  the  morals  of  the  people.  He  rooted 
out  the  so  prevalent  crime  of  infanticide — that  revolt- 
ing and  inhuman  practice  which  more  than  almost  any- 
thing else  revealed  the  corruption  of  the  human  heart 
under  the  bhght  of  paganism.  He  developed  the  hu- 
man instincts  of  men  and  built  up,  if  He  did  not  origi- 
nate, the  hospital  and  the  orphan  asylum  and  a  host 
of  kindred  institutions  of  charity.  He  even  reformed 
the  principles  of  legislation  and  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  science  of  international  law.  '  Yes, '  I  hear  the 
race  reply  to  the  scoffer  and  the  sceptic,  'this  Man 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  hath  indeed  opened  mine  eyes  to  see 
my  sin,  my  need,  my  duty,  and  to  recognize  my  high 
estate  as  a  child  of  God.  And  this  personal  experience 
of  His  enlightening  and  uplifting  power  is  the  sufficient 
answer  to  your  sneers.' 

But  I  turn  from  the  experience  of  the  race  to  that  of 
the  individual.  Here  we  tread  JBirmer  ground  and  are 
in  touch  with  a  deeper  experience.  The  Christian  is 
confronted  every  day  by  evidences  of  the  bitter  enmity 
of  unbelief  to  the  holy  religion  which  he  professes.    He 


266         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

hears  voices  all  around  him  that  are  the  true  echoes  of 
the  scornful  words  of  these  Pharisees,  "  As  for  this  fel- 
low, we  know  not  from  whence  He  is."  His  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Saviour  of  the 
world  is  contemptuously  assailed.  Sometimes  the  attack 
is  made  in  the  name  of  science,  sometimes  in  the  name 
of  progress  and  enlightenment,  sometimes  in  the  name 
of  religion  itself  by  men  who  seek  to  discrown  the 
Redeemer  and  strip  off  from  His  shoulders  the  royal 
robe  of  His  divinity.  The  forms  of  unbelief  are  pro- 
tean, from  the  blasphemous  infidelity  of  an  Ingersoll  to 
the  self-sufficient  naturalism  which  poses  as  a  religion, 
while  in  the  name  of  reason  (which  it  takes  in  vain)  it 
pours  scorn  upon  the  only  religion  which  has  ever 
grappled  successfully  with  the  needs  of  man;  but  they 
all  have  this  in  common,  that  they  reject  the  atone- 
ment of  Christ  and  deny  that  He  is  the  eternal  Son  of 
God. 

What  has  the  plain,  unlearned  Christian  to  oppose  to 
these  powerful  assaults  of  unbelief?  He  is  no  match 
in  argument  for  these  subtle  reasoners.  He  is  not  suffi- 
ciently well  read  to  detect  their  errors  of  fact  and  of 
history.  He  is  not  even  sufficiently  well  informed  of 
the  state  of  the  world  to-day  to  recognize  the  miserable 
futility  of  all  these  assaults  to  stay  the  triumphant  ad- 
vance of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  among  men.  Ah,  but 
he  has  one  sufficient  and  invincible  argument  for  the 
faith  that  is  in  him.  He  can  say  to  all  these  wise  and 
learned  men  who  wear  the  long  rol3es  of  distinguished 
position  in  the  scientific  or  the  literary  world,  and  make 
broad  their  phylacteries  as  the  high-priests  of  culture — 
He  can  answer  them  as  the  poor  beggar  answered  the 
great  men  at  Jerusalem,  "Why,  herein  is  a  marvellous 


The  Conclusiveness  of  Christian  Experience  267 

thing,  that  ye  know  not  from  whence  He  is,  and  yet  He 
hath  opened  mine  eyes!" 

'  This  Man  Jesus  of  Nazareth  hath  opened  mine  eyes. 
Whereas  I  was  bUnd,  now  I  see.  I  have  had  personal 
experience  of  His  divine  power.  The  blindness  which 
once  shut  me  in,  and  made  me  insensible  to  the  evil  and 
the  curse  of  sin,  incapable  of  appreciating  the  beauty 
of  holiness,  ignorant  of  my  true  destiny  as  a  child  of  God, 
He  has  taken  away.  This  is  a  distinct,  an  ineffaceable 
experience,  which  all  your  authority  of  position  and 
learning  and  logic  cannot  obliterate.  Jesus  Christ  has 
taken  away  the  scales  from  my  eyes.  I  see  now  what  I 
could  not  see  before.  The  world  and  life  and  death  are 
not  the  same  to  me  as  before.  Old  things  are  passed 
away.  You,  who  bid  me  reject  the  claims  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  pose  as  the  hghts  and  guides  of  men,  and  you 
threaten  me  with  your  excommunication  if  I  cling  to 
the  faith  of  my  fathers.  If  I  persist  in  worshipping 
Jesus  Christ  as  the  divine  Saviour  you  will  cast  me  out 
of  your  synagogue.  You  will  brand  me  as  an  obscuran- 
tist, as  an  old  fogy,  as  an  unenlightened,  superstitious 
person.  What  is  all  that  to  me,  when  I  know  in  whom 
I  have  believed?  when  I  have  the  evidence  of  my  own 
experience  that  the  Man  of  Nazareth  is  an  omnipotent 
Saviour? ' 

Such  is  the  answer  which  the  simple,  unlearned  Chris- 
tian may  make  to  the  assaults  which  are  made  upon  his 
faith.  It  is  sufficient,  it  is  conclusive.  All  the  logic 
and  all  the  learning  in  the  world  are  powerless  to  change 
a  fact.  And  this  Christian  experience  is  a  fact.  It 
stands  out  clear  and  definite,  unmistakable  and  un- 
changeable. The  most  powerful  modern  artillery  can 
as  soon  batter   down  the  Rocky  Mountains  as  all  the 


268        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

batteries  of  modern  unbelief  shall  destroy  this  fact  and 
truth  of  Christian  experience. 

And  it  is  a  fact  which  involves,  which  enwraps  a  faith 
— not  an  elaborate  system  of  dogmas  indeed,  but  that 
fundamental  belief  of  which  the  Apostles'  Creed  is  the 
embodiment,  and  which  was  expressed  by  the  man  of 
Ethiopia  when  he  asked  to  be  baptized  in  the  desert, 
"I  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God." 

My  Christian  brethren,  there  is  a  question  we  ought 
to  ask  ourselves,  as  we  consider  the  formidable  array 
of  the  forces  of  unbelief  by  which  we  are  encompassed 
to-day.  I;et  me  address  it  to  all  in  this  assembly  who 
have  been  signed  with  the  sign  of  the  Cross — to  all 
who  profess  and  call  themselves  Christians.  Have  you 
been  the  subject  of  this  Christian  experience?  Can  you 
say  as  the  once  blind  beggar  so  boldly  said  to  his  ques- 
tioners, "Whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I  see.  This  Man 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  hath  opened  mine  eyes?" 

Ah,  my  friends,  there  is  no  other  stable  foundation  for 
faith  and  life  but  this.  There  is  no  other  religion  worth 
having.  The  religion  of  outward  conformity  is  hollow 
and  superficial.  The  religion  which  consists  in  mere 
intellectual  assent  to  the  Christian  creed  has  no  root 
and  in  time  of  temptation  will  wither  away.  The  re- 
ligion which  is  summed  up  in  a  decent  attention  to 
the  ritual  of  the  Church  is  but  as  "sounding  brass  and 
a  tinkling  cymbal." 

We  want  a  religion  based  upon  a  personal  experience 
of  the  power  of  Jesus  Christ  to  enlighten  and  to  save. 
Let  us  never  be  content  until  that  religion  is  ours.  Let 
us  cry  unto  God  to  teach  us  to  know  His  Son  as  the 
Healer  and  the  Saviour.  Let  us,  like  the  pubhcan,  smite 
upon  our  breast  and  pray,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a 


The  Conclusiveness  of  Christian  Experience  269 

sinner."  And  let  us  have  recourse  for  light  and  pardon 
and  peace  to  Him  whom  God  hath  exalted  to  be  a  Prince 
and  a  Saviour. 

We  sinful  men  need  nothing  so  much  as  the  pardon 
of  sin,  and  \vith  the  pardon  an  humble  trust  in  the 
Redeemer  of  the  world,  who  can  open  our  eyes  and  turn 
us  from  darkness  to  light,  and  from  the  power  of  Satan 
to  God.  That  light  is  not  in  ourselves,  or  from  our- 
selves. It  is  from  Christ,  the  Light  of  the  world;  it  is 
from  His  Cross,  which  reveals  at  once  the  darkness  of 
our  sin  and  the  radiance  of  His  redeeming  love. 

"  I  heard  the  voice  of  Jesus  say, 

'  I  am  this  dark  world's  light; 
Look  unto  Me,  thy  morn  shall  rise 

And  all  thy  day  be  bright.' 
I  looked  to  Jesus,  and  I  found 

In  Him  my  Star,  my  Sun; 
And  in  that  light  of  life  I'll  walk 

Till  travelling  days  are  done." 


ENEMIES    OF    THE    CROSS    OF   CHRIST. 

FOR  THE  THIRD  SUNDAY  AFTER  EASTER 

"  They  are  the  enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ." — Phil.  iii.  18. 

These  are  the  words  of  one  of  the  great  leaders  and 
heroes  of  the  Christian  faith — of  the  man  who  fought 
"  the  good  fight "  for  Christ  and  His  truth  with  magnifi- 
cent courage  for  more  than  thirty  years  without  once 
flinching,  and  who  first  successfully  planted  the  banner 
of  the  Cross  in  the  chief  capitals  of  Europe. 

He  then  should  know — none  surely  better  than  he — 
who  are  the  friends  and  who  the  foes  of  the  Christian 
cause.  When  he  points  to  a  body  of  men  and  exclaims, 
"  Those  men  are  the  enemies  of  the  Cross/'  no  one  can  for 
a  moment  question  that  he  is  right. 

But  who  are  those  against  whom  this  great  captain 
of  the  faith  warns  the  true  soldiers  of  Christ?  Are  they 
the  priests  and  teachers  of  the  Pagan  religions  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  whose  unclean  altars  smoked  in  every  town 
and  village  of  the  empire,  whose  costly  temples  were  the 
glory  of  such  great  capitals  as  Ephesus  and  Corinth? 
No;  the  great  apostle  has  nothing  to  say  of  them.  Are 
they  then  the  philosophers  and  men  of  culture,  like 
Seneca  the  Stoic  or  Tacitus  the  historian,  who  despised, 
indeed,  the  popular  religions  as  vain  superstitions,  but 
who  mocked  even  more  contemptuously  at  this  new 
Jewish  religion  which  preached  of  Jesus  and  the  Resur- 
rection?   Are  these  "  the  enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ " 

270 


Enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ  271 

at  whom  St.  Paul  points  a  warning  finger?  Not  so.  He 
makes  no  allusion  to  them  either. 

Are  they  then  the  rulers,  the  magistrates,  the  pro- 
consuls, or  even  the  emperors  themselves,  who  regard- 
ing Cliristianity  as  a  pestilent  superstition,  dangerous 
to  the  good  order  of  society,  were  ever  ready  to  perse- 
cute, to  imprison,  or  even  to  put  to  the  sword  the  un- 
resisting followers  of  the  Nazarene?  No;  the  apostle  is 
Qot  pointing  at  the  Herods,  or  the  Neros,  or  their  tools 
and  instruments. 

Perhaps,  then,  he  is  alluding  to  the  informers  who 
dogged  the  footsteps  of  the  unhappy  Christians,  watch- 
ing for  the  secret  signs  by  which  they  made  themselves 
Icnown  to  each  other,  tracking  them  to  the  caves  and  sub- 
terranean hiding-places  where  they  were  wont  to  cele- 
brate their  holy  mysteries;  or  else  he  may  be  referring 
to  the  slanderers,  who  by  lying  reports  of  their  doctrines 
and  practices,  charging  them  with  unheard-of  and 
abominable  crimes,  persuaded  even  good  men  like  Marcus 
A.urelius  that  the  Christians  were  a  menace  to  the  empire 
and  ought  to  be  exterminated. 

Surely  these  men  were,  if  any  were,  "the  enemies  of 
the  Cross  of  Christ!"  But  no!  This  great  hero  and 
leader  of  the  hosts  of  the  faith  passes  all  these  by,  as  if 
they  gave  him  no  solicitude,  as  if  he  feared  them  not, 
and  singles  out  an  entirely  different  class  as  the  enemies 
whom  he  did  fear,  and  against  whom  he  would  warn 
the  soldiers  of  Christ. 

Who  are  they,  and  what  is  their  description?  Well, 
strange  to  say,  they  are  men  who  are  wearing  the  uni- 
form of  Christ  and  are  enrolled  under  His  banner !  They 
have  taken  the  solemn  sacramentvm — oath  of  allegiance 
— to  Jesus  of  Nazareth;  but  nevertheless,  in  fact  and  in 


272        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

truth,  they  are  the  enemies,  yes,  the  worst  enemies,  of  I 
the  Gross  of  Christ.  EnHsted  in  His  service  in  baptism, 
they  are  really  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  the  enemy. 
His  professed  followers  and  soldiers,  they  are  really  a 
hindrance  and  a  stumbling-block  to  His  cause.  The 
aged  apostle  speaks  not  only  very  strongly  but  with 
deep  emotion.  His  eyes  fill  with  tears  as  he  writes: 
"I  tell  you,"  he  says,  "even  weeping,  that  they  are  the; 
enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ." 

Now  let  us  inquire  why  it  is  these  professed  disciples 
of  Christ  are  so  characterized.     Here  is  the    apostle's 
answer :  "  Their  God  is  their  beUy :  their  glory  is  in  their  • 
shame :  their  mind  is  set  on  earthly  things." 

To  understand  his  meaning  it  will  be  necessary  to 
recall  to  your  minds  the  fact  that  there  were  two  parties 
in  the  Philippian  Church  whom  St.  Paul  held  antago- 
nists rather  than  friends  of  Christ  and  His  Church. 
There  was  the  Judaic  party  who  insisted  that  converts 
to  Christianity  were  bound  to  observe  the  Jewish  law, 
and  further,  that  they  could  only  be  justified  before  God 
by  their  own  merits  and  their  own  works.  Against 
these  the  apostle  vigorously  protested  as  perverters 
of  the  gospel,  because  they  sought  to  impose  a  yoke 
which  Christ  had  broken,  and  because  they  made  the 
Cross  of  Christ  of  none  effect  by  their  doctrine  of  self- 
justification.  "No,"  he  exclaims,  "by  grace  are  ye 
saved,  through  faith,  and  that  not  of  ourselves,  it  is  the 
gift  of  God.  By  the  deeds  of  the  law  shall  no  flesh  living 
be  justified.  We  are  justified  by  faith.  We  are  justified 
freely  by  His  grace  through  the  redemption  that  is  in 
Christ  Jesus.  Yes,  Christ  has  redeemed  us  from  the 
curse  of  the  law,  being  made  a  curse  for  us.  And  our 
hope  is  in  the  merits  of  His  Cross  and  passion,  that  we 


Enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ  273 

may  be  found  at  last  under  its  shelter,  not  vainly  trust- 
ing in  any  merits  of  our  own."  (Rom.  v.  1,  2;  Rom. 
iii.  24;  Gal.  iii.  13.) 

But  this  doctrine  of  liberty  which  the  apostle  preached, 
this  message  of  a  free  justification  and  pardon  by  faith 
in  Christ  and  His  Cross,  without  for  a  moment  trusting 
in  the  filthy  rags  of  our  own  righteousness,  was  perverted 
and  completely  nullified  by  another  party,  who  turned 
this  liberty  into  license;  who  under  cover  of  the  free- 
dom which  Christ  has  given  through  His  passion  "  turned 
the  grace  of  God  into  lasciviousness."  Claiming  the 
free  pardon  of  the  gospel  they  continued  in  sin  that 
grace  might  abound.  These  were  the  Antinomians,  who, 
like  their  successors  ever  since,  made  a  travesty  of  the 
doctrine  of  free  grace,  and  professing  to  trust  to  the 
Cross  of  Christ  for  pardon,  forgot  that  whoever  does 
really  trust  in  Christ  will  naturally  and  necessarily  be 
partakers  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  will  be  constrained  by 
the  love  of  Christ,  will  long  to  be  like  Christ,  and  will  by 
the  Cross  of  Christ  be  crucified  to  self  and  to  the  world. 

These  were  the  men  whom  the  apostle  could  not 
speak  of  without  weeping.  He  saw  them  giving  their 
whole  mind  and  interest  to  earthly  things  while  pro- 
fessing to  be  citizens  of  heaven.  He  saw  them  prac- 
tically making  a  god  of  their  fleshly  appetites  and  pas- 
sions while  professing  to  be  the  servants  and  soldiers 
of  the  Crucified.  He  saw  them  glorying  in  a  course  of 
life  which  should  have  been  their  sorrow  and  shame. 
And  so  with  tears  in  his  eyes  he  exclaims :  "  They  are  the 
enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ." 

This  judgment  of  the  great  apostle  suggests,  it  seems 
to  me,  reflections  which  may  well  claim  our  serious 
attention. 


274        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

1.  And  first  it  is  certainly  a  startling  reflection  that 
the  worst  enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ  were  to  be  found 
in  the  apostle's  day — are  to  be  found  in  our  day — not 
without  but  within  the  Christian  Church.  Were  St. 
Paul  among  us  to-day  we  cannot  doubt  he  would  single 
out  as  the  most  deadly  foes  of  the  faith,  not  the  mate- 
rialistic philosophers,  nor  the  unbelieving  scientists,  nor 
the  open  advocates  of  infidelity,  but  those  who  while 
wearing  the  uniform  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Cross  are 
strangers  to  the  spirit  of  the  Cross ;  men  who  like  these 
whose  picture  is  given  us  in  this  passage  from  which  our 
text  is  taken  are  the  slaves  of  appetite  while  ostensibly 
the  servants  of  Christ,  whose  god  is  some  carnal  lust, 
whose  glory  is  in  a  course  of  life  of  which  the  followers 
of  the  lowly  Jesus  should  be  ashamed,  and  whose  minds 
and  thoughts  and  affections  are  absorbed  and  domi- 
nated by  earthly  things,  while  they  are  nominally  mem- 
bers of  that  commonwealth  whose  metropolis  is  in 
heaven. 

Yes,  there  are  Antinomians  in  the  Christian  Church 
to-day,  practical  Antinomians,  just  as  there  are  men  of 
the  Judaic  spirit  and  temper.  On  the  one  hand  there 
are  men  vainly  striving  to  justify  themselves  before  God 
by  their  own  merits  and  good  works,  making  the  grace 
of  Christ  and  the  Cross  of  Christ  of  none  effect,  missing 
the  blessed  meaning  of  the  Cross  and  its  mighty  Sin- 
bearer  on  whom  the  Lord  hath  laid  the  iniquity  of  us  all. 
And  on  the  other  hand  there  are  men  who,  professing 
to  accept  salvation  by  grace  and  the  free  gift  of  pardon 
through  the  blood  of  the  Cross,  make  no  effort  after 
holiness,  have  no  perception  of  the  necessity  of  working 
out  their  own  salvation  with  fear  and  trembling  and  so 
wrest  the  doctrine  of  free  grace  to  their  own  destruction. 


Enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ  275 

No  doubt  it  is  an  extreme  case  which  the  apostle 
describes  in  the  text.  And  you  may  be  disposed  to 
think  it  hardly  finds  a  parallel  in  the  Christian  Church 
to-day.  You  may  think  it  scarcely  possible  for  any 
man  whose  god  is  some  fleshly  appetite,  some  carnal 
passion,  some  desire  of  the  lower  nature,  to  imagine 
himself  a  Christian.  And  yet  experience  proves  that 
there  are  many  such  men.  So  almost  limitless  is  the 
power  of  self-deception  that  men  and  women  will  be 
found  living  habitually  in  deadly  sins,  yet  still  fancying 
themselves  under  the  protection  of  the  grace  of  Christ. 
Yes,  and  while  living  in  the  guilty  indulgence  of  some 
carnal  sin,  they  will  desire  to  continue  to  partake  of  the 
Holy  Communion  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ. 

2.  But  I  pass  by  such  extreme  cases  and  ask  you  to 
reflect  that  whoever  is  governed  by  a  similar  spirit  of 
selfishness  and  earthly  mindedness  must  still  be  reck- 
oned among  the  enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ,  even  if 
he  has  not  become  the  slave  of  the  grosser  passions. 
The  baser  indulgences,  the  slavery  to  the  carnal  lusts, 
the  bodily  appetites,  these  are  only  the  more  repulsive 
outgrowths  of  selfishness  and  earthly  mindedness.  This 
is  why  the  apostle  employs  the  order  which  he  does  in 
enumerating  these  different  forms  of  the  antichristian 
character.  You  observe  that  he  places  last  the  minding 
of  earthly  things.  "  Their  god  is  their  belly :  their  glory 
is  in  their  shame:  they  mind  earthly  things."  An  anti- 
climax surely!  But  no;  like  a  skilful  diagnostician 
lie  is  tracing  these  grosser  forms  of  sinful  indulgence  to 
tlieir  source.  And  he  finds  the  source  of  gluttony,  of 
intemperance,  of  lasciviousness  in  the  fact  that  these 
men,  who  as  Christians  were  citizens  of  heaven,  set  their 
thoughts  and  their  affections  and  their  desires  wholly 


276        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

on  earthly  things.  Earthly  mindedness  leads  to  carnal 
mindedness. 

3.  Yet  another  case  is  worthy  of  attentive  considera- 
tion— the  case  of  what  may  be  called  temporary  and  in- 
termittent enmity  to  the  Cross.  Let  it  be  remembered, 
then,  that  in  so  far  as  any  Christian  man  or  woman  gives 
place  even  for  a  time  to  the  spirit  of  selfishness,  or  allows 
himself  to  indulge  in  excessive  affection  for  the  things  of 
this  present  world,  he  is  betraying  the  cause  in  which 
he  is  enlisted;  he  is  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  the  ene- 
mies of  the  Cross ;  nay,  he  is  himself  playing  the  part  of 
an  enemy  of  the  Cross  of  Christ. 

When  one  reflects  upon  what  the  Cross  of  Christ  has 
been  to  a  weary  sin-sick  world,  how  it  has  been  a  beacon 
to  the  lost,  a  haven  to  the  storm-tossed,  a  light  to  those 
who  sat  in  darkness,  rest  to  the  weary,  pardon  to  the 
sinner,  peace  to  the  troubled,  the  harbinger  of  hope 
and  the  pledge  of  eternal  life  to  the  human  race,  more 
and  more  during  nineteen  centuries  past,  surely,  surely, 
it  is  a  dreadful  thought  that  any  of  us  should  be  reck- 
oned among  the  enemies  of  the  Cross!  Who  would  not 
shudder  at  the  thought? 

But  this  clear-eyed  Christian  apostle  tells  us  plainly 
that  if  we  allow  ourselves  to  settle  down  in  earthly 
mindedness,  thinking  wholly  or  chiefly  of  the  things  of 
this  present  world,  caring  wholly  or  chiefly  for  its  inter- 
ests and  pursuits  as  the  ultimate  end  of  our  endeavor, 
setting  our  affections  supremely  upon  them,  and  losing 
the  conviction  of  our  heavenly  citizenship,  then  we  are 
the  enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ.  We  may  be  sincere 
Christians;  we  may  be  true  soldiers  of  the  Cross ;  we  may 
wear  the  holy  sign  upon  our  breast  in  honesty  and  truth; 
but  when,  though  only  for  a  time,  we  lose  the  spirit  of 


Enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ  277 

our  high  calUng  and  become  earthly  minded,  we  are 
hkc  sentinels  sleeping  on  our  post.  We  are  for  the  time 
no  longer  the  soldiers  of  the  Cross,  but  the  enemies  of 
the  Cross. 

4.  One  more  thought  only  I  would  suggest.  There  is 
a  profound  reason  for  the  assertion  and  the  judgment  of 
the  apostle  here.  It  is  this:  No  man  can  be  a  true 
servant  of  Christ  unless  he  has  caught  somewhat  of  the 
spirit  of  Christ.  Says  the  apostle:  "If  any  man  have 
not  the  spirit  of  Christ  he  is  none  of  His."  But 
the  spirit  of  Christ  is  the  spirit  of  the  Cross,  the  spirit  of 
self-sacrificing  love.  Christ  has  borne  the  Cross  of  shame 
and  agony  for  us,  and  on  that  Cross  He  was  the  Sin- 
bearer,  for  the  Lord  had  laid  on  Him  the  iniquity  of  us 
all.  In  that  great  sacrifice  and  atonement  He  was  alone. 
Of  the  people  there  was  none  with  Him.  In  awful  loneli- 
ness He  suffered.  In  awful  loneliness  He  died.  And  the 
fruit  of  that  dying,  suffering  love  is  our  redemption, 
our  peace,  our  salvation. 

But  as  surely  as  we  really  believe  in  Him  and  rest 
upon  Him  we  will,  we  77iust,  become  partakers  of  the 
spirit  of  His  Cross.  "  He  died  for  all  that  they  which 
live  should  not  henceforth  live  unto  themselves,  but 
unto  Him  which  died  for  them."  The  necessary  fruit 
of  His  passion  in  all  who  truly  appropriate  it  and  rest 
upon  it  is  that  henceforth  they  shall  not  live  unto  them- 
selves. The  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  is  imparted.  The 
pardoned  sinner  stoops  to  take  up  the  Cross  that  His 
Master  gives  him  to  bear. 

In  the  days  of  persecution  in  the  primitive  Church 
the  disciples  of  Christ  employed  tokens  and  signs  whereby 
they  might  know  each  other  as  the  followers  of  the  Naza- 
rene.    The  figure  of  a  fish  was  one  of  these  secret  tokens 


278        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

of  recognition,  because  the  Greek  letters  that  made  up 
the  word  for  fish  were  the  initial  letters  of  the  sen- 
tence, "Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Saviour."  And 
so  the  fish  sometimes  served  for  the  token  of  recogni- 
tion. Sometimes,  again,  when  two  Christians  that  were 
strangers  met  one  would  stoop  down  and  trace  the  sign 
of  the  Cross  in  the  sand  that  the  other,  if  a  Christian  also, 
might  so  recognize  him. 

And  so  to-day  there  is  but  one  test  of  Christianity: 
it  is  faith  in  Jesus  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Saviour. 
And  there  is  one  sign  whereby  the  soldiers  of  Christ  may 
be  distinguished  from  the  enemies  of  Christ :  by  the  sign 
of  the  Cross,  traced  not  in  the  sand,  but  in  the  life. 

My  brethren,  it  is  by  that  sign  alone  that  the  world 
can  be,  I  will  not  say  conquered,  but  redeemed  and 
saved.  The  sin  of  the  world,  how  can  it 'be  taken  away? 
Only  by  the  power  of  that  holy  sign,  the  sign  of  the  Cross. 
The  open  sores  of  the  world,  how  can  they  be  healed — 
its  discontent,  its  suffering,  its  sorrow,  its  poverty,  its 
wretchedness?  Again,  only  by  the  power  of  that  holy 
sign,  the  sign  of  the  Cross.  Vain  are  the  laws  of  political 
economy  for  the  healing  of  the  hurt  of  a  disordered 
social  system.  What  a  mockery  it  is  to  talk  of  the  un- 
erring accuracy  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  to  a 
hungry  man.  Equally  futile  are  the  devices  of  the 
physiologist,  or  the  master  of  hygiene,  or  the  biologist. 
The  hurt  of  the  world  is  too  deep  to  be  healed  by  science. 
They  may  demonstrate  to  her  satisfaction  the  law  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest.  But  what  meanwhile  is  the 
hope  of  the  unfit?  Is  there  no  gospel,  no  hope,  no  help 
for  them?  Political  programmes  for  the  better  govern- 
ment of  the  land  may  be  expounded  with  force  and  elo- 
quence.    Sociological  schemes  for  the  reorganization  of 


Enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ.  279 

the  State  may  shine  with  the  brilliancy  of  so  many  bub- 
bles floating  in  the  air.  But  meanwhile  down  there  in 
his  sin,  in  his  wretchedness,  in  his  want,  in  his  bitter 
rebellion  against  his  lot,  is  our  brother  man.  And  the 
question  is,  How  shall  he  be  helped,  how  shall  he  be  up- 
Hfted?  There  is  but  one  answer:  the  Cross — by  that 
sign  alone  shall  mercy  and  pity  and  humanity  triumph. 
It  is  the  hope,  the  only  hope,  of  the  State,  of  society,  of 
the  world,  as  it  is  the  only  hope  of  the  individual. 

What  a  vision  breaks  upon  our  sight  as  we  contem- 
plate the  state  of  the  world !  I  see  the  Cross  high  in  air 
leading  the  hosts  of  Christ  in  their  battle  against  lust 
and  crime,  injustice  and  wrong,  sorrow  and  suffering. 

"  The  moon  of  Mahomet 
Arose,  and  it  shall  set; 

While,  blazoned  high  on  heaven 's  immortal  noon, 
The  Cross  leads  generations  on." 

Ah!  it  is  the  hope  of  the  world.  By  that  sign  His 
faithful  followers  are  conquering  everywhere.  Victo- 
ries of  peace  and  love  and  heahng  are  being  won.  But 
I  see  that  only  those  who  have  been  baptized  into  the 
spirit  of  the  Cross,  who  wear  the  Cross  on  their  hearts  as 
well  as  on  their  shields,  are  winning  these  victories. 
Only  these  are  recognized  as  His  soldiers  by  the  once 
crucified  but  now  glorified  Captain  of  the  host.  And 
I  see  that  many  of  His  professed  followers,  who  wear  His 
uniform,  and  have  sworn  allegiance  to  Him,  are  really 
doing  no  service  in  this  great  conflict.  They  have  lost 
the  spirit  of  the  Cross.  The  spirit  of  self-love  and  of 
self-indulgence  has  triumphed  over  the  spirit  of  Christ. 
They  have  forgotten  that  they  are  citizens  of  the 
heavenly  city,  and  their  mind  is  fixed  and  absorbed  by 


28o        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

earthly  aims  and  hopes.  And  so  they  have  lost  their 
glorious  title  of  soldiers  of  the  Cross,  battling  in  this 
great  world  conflict  for  Him  and  for  mankind,  and  I  see 
that  the  King  Himself  declares  of  them,  "  These  are  the 
enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ." 


1 


LAYING   HOLD   ON   ETERNAL   LIFE 

FOR   THE    FOURTH    SUNDAY    AFTER    EASTER 

"0  man  of  God,  .  .  .  lay  hold  on  eternal  life." — I.  Tim.  vi.  11. 

This  appeal  of  Paul  the  aged  to  Timothy,  his  own 
son  in  the  faith,  strikes  a  note  in  harmony  with  the  les- 
sons which  the  Church  as  a  wise  and  loving  mother  is 
urging  upon  us  her  children  at  this  season.  The  great 
theme  which  stands  conspicuously  out  in  our  services 
is  still  the  new  life  which  is  generated  in  the  Christian 
by  the  power  of  the  Resurrection.  During  these  great 
forty  days  till  Ascension  we  are  constantly  reminded 
that  we  are  the  children  of  the  Resurrection.  We  belong 
to  that  higher  sphere  revealed  by  the  Resurrection. 
We  are  the  sons,  the  heirs  of  the  Great  King,  "  heirs  of 
God,  and  joint  heirs  with  Christ." 

Our  text  is  a  summons  to  remember  and  to  act  upon 
this  great  fact;  to  live  as  those  who  have  a  title  to  an 
inheritance  which  is  incorruptible,  undcfiled,  and  that 
fadeth  not  away.  "0  man  of  God,  .  .  .  lay  hold  on 
eternal  life." 

My  treatment  of  this  subject  is  suggested  by  the  collect 
for  the  day,  whose  rhythmic  music  still  lingers  in  our 
ears.  It  is  my  purpose  to  answer  briefly  the  question, 
How  can  we  lay  hold  on  eternal  life?  And  my  answer 
is  put  into  my  mouth  by  this  collect,  namely,  first,  by 
loving  God's  commandments,  and  secondly,  by  desiring 
God's  promises.  _, 

281 


282         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

As  to  the  first  let  us  note  that  the  commandments  of 
God  belong  to  the  eternal  and  the  spiritual,  so  that  in 
pondering  them,  in  perceiving  their  beauty,  and  in  de- 
lighting to  obey  them  we  are  "laying  hold  on  eternal 
Ufe."  To  the  heart  that  is  not  touched  by  the  grace  of 
God  the  divine  commandments  often  seem  a  grievous 
burden  too  heavy  to  be  borne.  If  they  are  not  despised 
and  scorned  they  are  feared.  They  are  regarded  as  the 
yoke  of  a  taskmaster,  or  the  arbitrary  decrees  of  an 
absolute  monarch,  who  imposes  them  in  severity  rather 
than  in  love. 

But  when  the  reason  is  enlightened  it  is  perceived 
that  these  precepts  are  not  arbitrary,  are  not  grievous, 
but  are  the  expression  of  eternal  love;  they  are  simply 
the  law  of  man's  highest  happiness.  To  break  them  is 
not  merely  to  sin  against  God,  it  is  to  sin  against  our 
own  souls,  against  our  own  peace,  against  the  order  and 
harmony  of  our  own  being  ;  whereas  to  obey  them  is 
not  bondage,  but  liberty  and  life,  wisdom  and  peace,  joy 
and  salvation,  as  well  in  this  life  as  in  that  which  is  to 
come.  "  I  will  walk  at  liberty,  for  I  seek  Thy  precepts." 
"  Great  peace  have  they  that  love  Thy  law. "  "  A  good 
understanding  have  ah  they  that  do  His  command- 
ments." 

Then,  secondly,  we  may  lay  hold  on  eternal  hfe  by 
desiring  that  which  God  doth  promise.  His  promises, 
too,  belong  to  the  sphere  of  the  eternal.  This  is  obvious 
enough  of  the  promises  that  pertain  to  heaven,  with  its 
cloudless  peace,  with  its  perfect  rest,  with  its  spotless 
purity,  with  its  tearless  happiness,  with  its  blessed  re- 
union of  severed  ties.  But  let  us  think  rather  of  the 
promises  of  God  that  have  their  fulfilment,  in  part  at 
least,  in   this    world,  in  our  mortal  hfe.     I  mean  the 


Laying  Hold  on  Eternal  Life  283 

promise  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins;  the  promise  of  rest; 
the  promise  of  the  peace  of  God;  the  promise  of  the  joy 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Let  me  remind  you  that  these  and 
like  promises  are  for  this  world.  "  Thou  wilt  keep  him 
in  perfect  peace  whose  mind  is  stayed  on  Thee,  because 
he  trusteth  in  Thee,"  was  meant  for  our  present  expe- 
rience. "  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest " — this  too  was  meant 
to  be  given  now,  on  this  earth,  amid  the  storms  and 
anxieties  of  this  mortal  life. 

"In  everj^thing,  by  prayer  and  supplication,  Avith 
thanksgiving,  let  your  requests  be  made  known  unto 
God,  and  the  peace  of  God,  which  passeth  all  under- 
standing, shall  keep  your  hearts  and  minds" — this  again 
was  a  promise  for  the  wilderness.  The  same  is  true  of 
those  blessed  words,  "Lo,  I  am  with  you  always,  even 
unto  the  end  of  the  world." 

What  I  would  urge  is  that  these  promises  are  the  pro- 
jections into  time  of  the  things  that  are  eternal,  and  that 
we  may  lay  hold  on  eternal  life  now  by  desiring,  by  pur- 
suing, by  seeking  after  the  fulfilment  of  these  exceeding 
great  and  precious  promises. 

Now,  promising  these  two  things,  the  love  of  God's 
commandments  and  the  desire  of  His  promises,  as  the 
method  of  laying  hold  on  eternal  life,  what,  let  us  ask, 
should  be  our  attitude  toward  the  pursuits,  the  interests, 
the  occupations,  the  relations,  of  this  present  world? 

Our  lot  is  cast  in  a  world  of  change.  Yes,  in  the 
familiar  phraseology  of  the  collect  for  this  day,  "sun- 
dry and  manifold"  are  the  changes  of  the  world.  It  is 
a  kaleidoscope,  this  ever-shifting  scene  of  mortal  exist- 
ence. Only,  the  changing  combinations  of  circumstance 
are    not   always    beautiful    to    look    upon.     Nay,   its 


284        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

beauty  ever  fades,  its  joys  ever  pass.  "  Nothing  bides." 
Youth,  fortune,  fame;  home,  with  all  its  pure  delights; 
the  busy  occupations  of  life — all,  all  are  transitory. 
Beautiful,  it  may  be,  and  blissful  for  many  years,  but 
at  last  the  chill  frost  of  change  smites  them.  The  re- 
volving seasons  place  before  our  eyes  each  year  the  true 
image  of  human  life.  It  is  the  springtime  of  youth  con- 
tinually passing  into  the  glory  of  summer,  and  this  in- 
sensibly losing  its  freshness  and  its  greenness  and  its 
vitality  till,  lo !  the  summer  is  past  and  the  autumn  has 
come — autumn,  the  herald  of  winter,  when  the  forests 
will  be  bare  and  the  dead  leaves  will  rustle  beneath  our 
feet — memories  of  the  joy  and  successes  and  friend- 
ships of  youth  turned  sere  and  dry,  to  be  stirred  now 
and  then  by  some  wind  from  the  past,  then  to  lie  still 
again.  "  The  voice  said  '  Cry,'  and  he  said  '  What  shall 
I  cry?'  All  flesh  is  grass,  and  all  the  goodliness  thereof 
is  as  the  flower  of  the  field.  The  grass  withereth  and 
the  flower  fadeth,  because  the  wind  of  the  Lord  bloweth 
upon  it.     Surely  the  people  is  grass." 

What  then?  Is  life  nothing  but  vanity  and  vexation 
of  spirit?  Is  the  cynic  right?  Is  pessimism  the  true 
philosophy  after  all?  Must  we  conclude  that  for  most 
men  at  any  rate  life  is  not  worth  living?  Never,  if  we 
have  caught  the  vision  which  the  religion  of  Christ  un- 
folds! In  that  we  see  the  changing  scenes  of  human 
experience  have  a  function  which  is  as  beautiful  as  it  is 
purposeful.  It  is  not  for  naught  that  we  admire  and 
seek  and  strive  and  hope  and  battle  for  the  prizes  and 
pursuits  of  life.  If,  indeed,  we  make  them  supreme,  if 
we  do  not  subordinate  them  to  higher  aims,  if  we  make 
the  fatal  blunder  of  forgetting  that  they  are  transitory, 
that  we  cannot  keep  them  always,  then  bitter  disap- 


Laying  Hold  on  Eternal  Life  285 

pointment — God  send  it  be  not  despair — will  be  our 
portion.  But  he  who  is  taught  of  Christ  will  not  fall 
into  such  a  snare.  Two  anchors  will  hold  him  firm 
in  the  day  when  the  storm  of  change  breaks  upon  him. 
One  is  the  love  of  God's  commandments,  the  other 
the  desire  of  His  promises.  By  the  one  he  wiU  have  the 
channel  of  duty  clearly  marked  out  for  him;  by  the 
other  he  will  have  an  eternal  purpose  planted  in  his  soul 
and  a  divine  meaning  given  to  human  life.  God's  com- 
mandments will  enlighten  the  moral  reason,  will  chasten 
and  restrain  the  passions  and  desires  and  energies  of  the 
man,  will  open  the  path  of  liberty  to  him.  And  then 
God's  promises  will  raise  his  aspirations  and  ambitions 
above  the  things  that  are  merely  transitory,  will  give 
him  an  ideal  worthy  of  the  best  that  is  in  him,  dipped  in 
the  hues  of  an  immortal  hope. 

But  how?  By  weaning  him  from  earth  and  its  rela- 
tions, as  the  ascetics  would  say?  By  destroying  his 
interest  in  this  present  fading  world?  By  putting  the 
stamp  of  vanity  and  decay  on  everything  that  belongs 
to  this  present  life?     In  a  word,  by  "  other  worldliness  "? 

Such  a  course  may  save  a  man  from  many  illusions. 
It  may  secure  him  against  bitter  disappointments.  But 
it  may  be  questioned  whether  it  will  make  him  any 
better.  Certainly  it  will  make  life  very  dark.  And 
the  joyful  Christian  tone  \vill  be  absent. 

But  there  is  a  more  excellent  way.  It  is  by  perceiv- 
ing the  eternal  significance  of  things  temporal — by  recog- 
nizing that  this  changeful  world  is  the  schoolhouse  of 
the  unchangeable,  the  eternal.  From  this  point  of  view 
one  sees  that  the  transitory  is  the  shadow  of  the  ever- 
enduring,  nay,  this  transitory  life  is  the  seed-plot  of  the 
life  that  is  immortal.     This  latter  grows  out  of  it,  is  de- 


286        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

termined  by  it.  We  are  in  a  great  evolutionary  process, 
and  the  end  is  life  everlasting.  The  present  life,  with  its 
discipline,  its  battle,  its  struggle,  its  moral  training,  is 
thus  in  the  highest  sense  educational.  All  its  relations 
and  duties  and  occupations  have  an  eternal  relation. 
They  pass,  they  perish,  they  seem  to  have  been  for 
naught;  but  it  is  not  so:  in  reality  they  are  leaving  an 
eternal  impress  upon  the  soul.  Look  at  a  piece  of  petri- 
fied wood;  see  the  rings  of  the  wood  fibre,  the  grain  of 
the  wood,  its  color,  its  shape,  its  indentations.  And 
yet  there  is  not  a  particle  of  the  wood  left :  it  is  all  stone ; 
but  the  wood  that  perished  moulded  the  stone  and  made 
it  what  it  is.  This  is  but  a  very  imperfect  image  of  how 
the  incidents  and  experiences,  the  occupations  and  rela- 
tions of  this  fleeting  life  perish,  but  leave  their  eternal 
impress  on  the  soul. 

Imperfect?  Yes,  most  imperfect  and  inadequate, 
for  many  of  the  relations  of  our  mortal  lives  are  pro- 
jected into  eternity.  The  mortal  dies,  the  immortal 
survives.  Love  is  one  of  these  human  things  that  can- 
not die;  it  is  born  of  God,  it  goes  to  God,  it  abides 
with  us  in  God's  presence. 

When,  then,  the  shadows  begin  to  creep  upon  a  man's 
pathway;  when  old  age  comes  upon  him,  and  perhaps 
he  has  outlived  his  children  and  his  friends  and  his  am- 
bitions; when  the  ends  for  which  he  has  labored  have 
been  attained  and  have  gone  to  decay,  or  have  failed  and 
he  mourns  them  dead — in  such  an  extreme  case  of 
change  as  this,  shall  we  say  life  and  its  struggles  have 
been  in  vain?  Dust  and  ashes,  vanity  and  vexation  of 
spirit — is  that  the  summary  of  it  all?  No,  no,  no!  If 
he  has  loved  God's  commandments  and  desired  His 
promises;  if  he  has  caught  the  eternal  significance  of 


I 


Laying  Hold  on  Eternal  Life  287 

things  temporal,  then  those  hopes  and  aims  and  suc- 
cesses and  joys  have  become  a  treasure  laid  up  for  him 
in  heaven.  Nothing  is  lost.  "All  things  are  yours, 
.  .  .  whether  the  world,  or  life,  or  death,  or  things 
present,  or  things  to  come;  all  are  yours." 

Yes,  even  death  is  ours.  It  does  not  destroy ;  it  only 
removes  the  scaffolding  which  conceals  and  mars  the 
beauty  of  the  building.  That  building  of  God  is  rising 
now  on  the  shore  of  time,  unseen,  but  real,  substantial, 
eternal.  Its  reflection  at  least  we  may  see  in  the  char- 
acters, in  the  \drtues,  in  the  Christliness  of  those  who 
love  God's  commandments  and  desire  His  promises. 

Thus  time  is  the  womb  of  eternity.  The  unchangeable 
and  eternal  is  the  child  of  the  transitory  and  temporal. 

See  that  beautiful,  ethereal  organism  come  forth  from 
the  ugly  shell  of  the  grub  that  crawls  in  the  slime.  Lo, 
the  shell  is  broken,  is  cast  off,  is  left  behind,  and  the 
winged  creature,  sparkling  \\dth  rainbow  hues  of  beauty, 
rises  and  soars  into  the  sunshine.  So,  dear  friends,  the 
life  that  knows  no  change,  no  pain  or  sorrow,  no  disease 
or  death,  no  bitterness  of  parting,  no  gall  of  misunder- 
standing, grows  out  of  this  frail,  perishing,  changeful 
Ufe,  so  full  of  broken  chords,  of  faded  joys,  of  vanished 
hopes,  of  aims  defeated,  of  expectations  disappointed, 
of  happiness  crushed  in  the  bud  or  withered  in  the  blos- 
som. Out  of  the  changing,  dying,  mortal  life  is  born 
the  unchanging,  undying  state ;  and,  lo,  there  is  not  one 
thing  of  beauty  lost;  not  one  heroic  endeavor  that  has 
been  in  vain;  not  one  pang  of  suffering,  bravely  borne, 
that  has  not  left  its  impress  of  glory  upon  the  life  eternal. 
As  each  one  of  the  weaver's  threads  shows  on  the  other 
side  of  the  tapestry  and  forms  part  of  the  artist's  de- 
sign, so  oui-  human  experiences,  our  aims,  our  efforts, 


288         The  Gospel  in  the  Chnstian  Year 

our  strivings,  our  sufferings,  our  patient  endurance  all 
reappear  in  the  life  that  now  we  cannot  see;  and  each 
has  its  place  and  its  purpose,  each  its  part  in  working 
out  the  bright  designs  of  the  Master  Artist,  whose  serv- 
ants and  weavers  we  are. 


THE   LAYMAN'S  RESPONSIBILITY 

FOR   THE    FIFTH   SUNDAY   AFTER    EASTER 

"  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth;  .  .  .  ye  are  the  light  of  the  world." 

Matt.  V.  13,  14 

In  these  graphic  words  Jesus  Christ  sets  forth  the  sub- 
lime mission  of  His  Church  among  men.  As  against  the 
corruption  that  is  in  the  world:  "Ye  are  the  salt  of  the 
earth."  As  against  the  darkness:  "Fe  are  the  light  of 
the  world." 

The  antiseptic  quality  of  salt  is  well  known.  It  is 
used  here  as  a  figure  of  the  function  of  the  Church,  to 
preserve  the  world  from  moral  corruption  and  decay,  to 
sweeten  and  to  purify  it. 

But  is  not  Christ  Himself  the  Purifier  and  Redeemer 
of  the  world?  Is  He  not  also  the  light  of  the  world? 
Yes,  and  for  that  reason  it  is  plain  that  Christ  intended 
the  Church  to  carry  on  His  work,  to  be  the  medium  of 
communicating  to  men  the  benefits  of  His  gospel. 

Now,  it  is  of  the  utmost  moment  to  the  true  under- 
standing of  these  words  of  Jesus  Christ  that  we  should 
consider  to  whom  He  addressed  them.  I  have  said  that 
they  depict  the  functions  of  "the  Church,"  but  by  the 
Church  I  do  not  mean  the  apostles  then  or  the  clergy 
now,  but  the  whole  Church,  laity  as  well  as  clergy,  for  it 
is  plain  that  our  Lord  is  addressing  Himself  to  His  dis- 
ciples without  distinction,  men  and  women,  all  of  every 
class  and  station. 

289 


290        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

"WTien  therefore  He  says  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth ; 
...  ye  are  the  hght  of  the  world,"  He  is  speaking  to  us 
all — to  you  who  sit  in  the  pews,  as  well  as  to  us  who 
serve  in  the  chancel  and  the  pulpit. 

Let  me  ask  you,  then,  my  brethren,  first  of  all  this 
morning,  to  consider  the  import  of  this  statement  that 
the  work  of  purifying  and  enlightening  the  world  (which 
can  only  be  accomplished  by  the  instrumentality  of  the 
Gospel  of  Christ)  rests  upon  the  shoulders,  or  at  least 
was  meant  to  rest  upon  the  shoulders,  of  the  whole  Church 
and  not  upon  the  clergy  alone. 

Now,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  there  has  been 
for  centuries  an  apostasy  from  the  doctrine  of  Christ 
upon  this  subject.  An  artificial  and  unscriptural  dis- 
tinction grew  up  between  the  clergy  and  the  laity  which 
had  its  flower  and  fruit  in  the  establishment  of  a  sacer- 
dotal caste  to  whom  the  spiritual  functions  and  ministry 
of  the  gospel  were  supposed  to  be  exclusively  entrusted. 

Much  of  this  fungus  growth  was  cut  out  at  the  Refor- 
mation, but  much  of  it  still  remains.  The  right  of  every 
soul  to  approach  its  God  without  the  intervention  of  a 
human  priesthood  was  vindicated.  The  yoke  of  sacer- 
dotal tyranny  over  the  conscience  was  broken.  But 
tacitly  Protestants  still  leave  to  the  clergy  the  respon- 
sibility of  spreading  the  gospel  and  making  its  saving 
power  operative  among  men.  The  laity  have  not  been 
as  eager  to  claim  their  duties  as  their  rights.  But  rights 
and  duties  are  correlative.  Every  right  involves  a  cor- 
responding duty.  The  freedom  of  conscience  vindicated 
at  the  Reformation  entails  a  weighty  responsibility. 

If  the  laity  are  members  of  the  "royal  priesthood,"  of 
which  St.  Peter  wrote,  then  they  have  to  consider  what 
their  priestly  duties  are  in  the  Church  and  in  the  world. 


The  Layman's  Responsibility  291 

But,  as  I  have  said,  these  duties  are  not  half  recognized, 
much  less  fulfilled.  The  laity  imagine  that  the  minister 
is  their  representative  in  personal  Christian  work.  Not 
only  is  he  to  exercise  the  functions  of  officially  and  au- 
thoritatively preaching  the  gospel  and  celebrating  the 
Sacraments  (which,  indeed,  belong  peculiarly  to  his 
office),  but  he  is  to  have  a  monopoly  of  the  work  of  mak- 
ing the  saving  power  of  the  gospel  felt  among  men! 

To  bear  witness  of  Christ,  to  make  His  gospel  known, 
to  bring  men  under  its  power,  to  win  souls  to  the  obe- 
dience of  Christ,  in  a  word,  to  apply  Christianity  to  the 
needs  of  a  sin-laden,  sorrow-burdened  world,  all  this 
belongs  to  the  ordained  minister,  not  to  the  laity! 

It  is  his  business  to  save  the  world,  it  is  the  business 
of  his  people  to  give  the  money  necessary  to  carry  on 
the  work.     In  the  pungent  words  of  a  living  American 
preacher:  "Hardly  anything  has  transpired  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Christian  Church  that  has  done  more  to  arrest 
its  growth  than  the  springing  up  of  that  kind  of  discrim- 
ination between  clergy  and  laity  that  distinguishes  the 
two  from  one  another,  not  simply  in  function,  but  in 
their  respective  relations  to  the  God-spirit  considered 
as  a  personal  tenant,  inspirer,  actuator  in  the  individual 
life  and  activity.     The  sharp  distinction  now  made  be- 
tween clergy  and  laity  did  not  exist  in  apostolic  days, 
nor  for  a  considerable  time  after,  and  when  it  did  come, 
it  came  as  a  device  of  the  devil  to  minimize  the  number 
of  them  who  should  make  large  spiritual  attainment  to 
the  end  of  minimizing  the  number  of  them  who  should 
feel  large  spiritual  responsibility.     From  that  time  on 
the  clergy  have  made  it  more  or  less  of  a  business  to  be 
holy  and  preach  the  gospel,  and  the  laity  have  made  it 
more  or  less  of  a  business  to  make  money,  enjoy  them- 


292         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

selves,  pay  their  pew  rent,  and  solace  themselves  with 
an  evangelical  vicarage." 

My  brethren,  is  this  not  substantially  a  true  indict- 
ment? Consider  for  a  moment.  How  many  of  you 
carry  on  your  hearts  any  sense  of  personal  responsibility 
for  the  saving  of  the  souls  of  men,  and  the  making  Chris- 
tianity dominant  in  the  world  by  your  own  individual 
efforts?  How  many  of  you  set  it  before  you  as  a  duty 
involved  in  your  Christian  discipleship  to  make  distinct 
and  definite  efforts  to  bear  witness^to  your  fellows  of  the 
reality  of  the  claim  of  Jesus  Christ  to  be  the  Saviour  of 
the  world?  How  many  of  you  ask  yourselves  as  you  go 
home  from  church  on  Sunday,  What  can  I  do  this  week 
to  spread  the  gospel  among  men?  Who  is  there  that  I 
can  influence  to  feel  the  power  of  the  Cross  and  Passion 
of  Christ?  What  sorrowing  or  suffering  one  is  there  to 
whom  I  can  carry  the  comfort  and  the  radiance  of  a 
Christian  faith?  I  may  be  mistaken — I  should  thank  God 
if  I  am — but  I  fear  that  not  one  in  fifty  is  burdened  with 
such  questions  as  these.  "A  leading  business  man  in 
one  of  our  large  cities  remarked  that  he  had  not  been 
inside  a  church  for  seventeen  years,  and  that  during  that 
time  no  Christian  had  addressed  him  personally  on  the 
subject  of  religion,  although  thousands  of  them  had  met 
him  in  his  store  and  in  social  life.  This  is  not  at  all  ex- 
ceptional. In  the  popular  conception  personal  work  is 
not  a  necessary  part  of  Christian  living." 

And  yet  all  the  while  there  stand  the  words  of  our 
Master,  "whose  name  and  sign  we  bear,"  words  ad- 
dressed to  every  one  of  His  disciples :  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of 
the  earth;  .  .  .  ye  are  the  light  of  the  world."  Of  what  ser- 
vice is  the  salt  if  it  be  not  brought  in  contact  with  the 
mass  it  is  intended  to  preserve  from  corruption?    And  of 


-  The  Layman's  Responsibility  293 

what  use  is  the  Hght  if  it  be  hidden  under  a  bushel? 
The  Christian,  it  has  been  well  said,  "  is  to  save  men  by 
a  divine  contagion,  by  a  living  touch.  There  is  salt 
enough  in  the  world,  but  it  is  barrelled  up  in  the 
churches,  and  needs  to  be  scattered  and  applied."  And 
we  may  add,  "  there  is  light  enough  in  the  world,"  but  it 
is  hidden  or  quenched  by  the  unfaitlifulness  or  the  timid- 
ity of  Christians.  If  only  the  bushel-measure  could  be 
lifted  off,  the  whole  room  would  be  flooded  with  the 
heavenly  radiance. 

My  brethren,  is  there  not  lurking  in  our  hearts,  un- 
recognized perhaps,  a  fundamentally  false  conception 
of  the  meaning  and  intent  of  the  Christian  religion?  Do 
we  not  think  of  it  as  the  instrument  of  our  salvation 
and  nothing  more  ?  As  the  means  of  enlightening  and 
purifying  and  comforting  our  own  hearts,  ours  only? 
Uo  we  not  lose  sight  of  one  entire  hemisphere  of  the 
gospel,  namely,  that  it  is  given  to  us  in  trust  for  our  fel- 
low men? 

"  Freely  ye  have  received,  freely  give,"  is  the  Saviour's 
command.  We  on  the  contrary  look  on  the  benefits  of 
the  religion  of  Christ  as  gifts  to  be  received  or  enjoyed, 
not  to  be  used  for  others'  sake.  Thus  our  rehgion  ac- 
quires a  tone  and  spirit  of  selfishness.  We  read  our 
Bibles  (if  at  all)  for  ourselves,  we  pray  for  ourselves. 
We  come  to  church  to  receive  personal  spiritual  benefit. 
We  ask  "What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  and  forget  the 
other  half  of  the  problem,"  What  can  I  do  to  save  others  t '[ 
We  look  to  the  Cross  as  the  instrument  of  our  salvation, 
but  forget  the  wider  purpose  of  the  great  sacrifice  of 
Calvary:  "He  died  for  all,  that  they  that  Uve  should 
not  henceforth  live  unto  themselves,  but  unto  Him 
which  died  for  them.'! 


294        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

Now,  this  is  a  radically  false  conception  of  the  religion 
of  Christ,  and  at  any  cost  we  must  get  rid  of  it,  if  we  are 
ourselves  to  experience  its  transforming  and  inspiring 
power.  For  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the  joy 
and  peace  of  the  gospel  can  spring  up  only  in  the  heart 
that  has  been  baptized  into  the  spirit  of  love  and  self- 
sacrifice.  Remember  the  Master's  words,  "  Take  My 
yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of  Me,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto 
your  souls."  Our  Lord  has  laid  upon  us  all,  upon  each 
one  of  us  who  would  be  His  disciple,  the  duty  of  carrying 
on  the  work  which  He  began  on  earth.  He  gives  us  His 
gospel  that  we  may  give  it  to  our  neighbor  that  is  next 
unto  us.  He  saves  us  that  we  may  straightway  go  and 
seek  and  save  others.  He  discovers  to  us  the  fountain 
of  the  water  of  life  that  we  may  lift  up  our  voices  and 
cry  in  the  desert,  "  Ho!  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come 
ye  to  the  waters. " 

This  is  a  work  and  a  duty  that  cannot  be  done  by 
proxy.  You  cannot  hire  anybody  to  do  it  for  you. 
The  rich  man  cannot  pay  a  substitute  to  love  men  and 
serve  them  in  his  stead.  Money  cannot  buy  what  the 
Saviour  asks  of  you.  More  precious  than  gold  and  silver 
and  precious  stones  is  the  offering  that  He  seeks.  It  is 
the  gift  of  personal  service,  personal  ministry  among 
your  fellow  men.  In  the  weighty  words  of  the  late 
Bishop  of  Durham,  Dr.  Westcott,  "is  it  not  true  that 
the  great  majority  of  churchmen  who  should  be  preach- 
ing the  faith  by  the  open  avowal  of  Christian  motives, 
by  the  plain  acknowledgment  of  Christian  hopes,  by  the 
practical  enforcement  of  Christian  belief,  by  the  thought- 
ful interpretation  of  Christian  doctrines,  are  content  to 
be  silent,  as  if  their  parts  could  be  fulfilled  by  proxy 
Is  it  not  true  that  whole  regions  of  thought  and  action 


The  Layman's  Responsibility  295 

are  left,  as  it  were,  outside  the  range  of  our  creed,  by  a 
kind  of  common  consent,  as  if  the  message  of  the  Incarna- 
tion did  not  necessarily  affect  everything  which  falls 
within  the  scope  of  human  faculties?  Is  it  not  true 
therefore  that  men  are  led  to  form  a  false  estimate  of  the 
gospel  from  the  use  which  Christians  make  of  it,  and  to 
mistake  its  inherent  character?  It  cannot  indeed  be 
otherwise.  The  average  hfe  of  Christians  must  be  the 
sign  and  measure  of  the  Christian  Faith  to  the  world. 
And  that  hfe,  exactly  so  far  as  it  is  not  a  mere  habit  or 
imitation,  must  be  a  victorious  progress,  a  continuous 
mastering  of  fresh  truths,  a  winning  of  a  more  perfect 
peace  within  and  without." 

I  will  not  enter  to-day  into  the  methods  of  this  minis- 
tration or  seek  to  describe  the  manifold  forms  and  ways 
in  which  we  can  minister  to  our  Lord  by  ministering  to 
His  children,  our  fellow  men.  I  must  content  myself 
with  the  assertion  and  enforcement  of  the  general  prin- 
ciple that  it  is  the  high  and  holy  privilege  of  every  disci- 
ple of  Christ  to  bear  his  part  daily  in  the  great  work  of 
purifying  and  saving  the  world.  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the 
earth ;  ...  ye  are  the  light  of  the  world."  The  great  prob- 
lem before  the  Church  to-day  is  how  to  get  the  salt  out 
of  the  barrels,  where  it  is  stored  away  to  no  purpose,  and 
distribute  it  in  the  world,  so  that  its  saving  power  may 
be  felt ;  how  to  get  the  bushel-measure  hfted  off  the  can- 
dlestick, so  that  the  light  may  shine  for  all  that  are  in 
the  house. 

As  matters  stand  to-day,  her  work  is  crippled  and 
hampered  to  an  incalculable  extent  by  the  loss  of  nine- 
tenths  of  her  reserve  power.  The  clergy  and  a  few  of 
the  laity  are  seeking  to  do  that  work  of  salvation  which 
belongs  to  the  whole  Church.     It  is  as  if  the  officers  of 


296         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

an  army  with  the  help  of  the  orderly  sergeants  should 
be  expected  to  fight  the  battles  without  the  aid  of  the 
rank  and  file. 

No,  my  brethren,  every  Christian  is  pledged  in  his 
baptism  to  be  a  soldier  and  servant  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Were  the  obligation  realized  and  met,  the  Church  would 
make  conquests  in  a  year  which  cannot  be  accom- 
plished in  a  century  by  the  present  methods. 

Each  disciple  of  Christ  would  live  under  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  conviction  that  to  him  the  Saviour  of  the 
world  had  entrusted  his  share  of  the  beneficent  work  of 
making  His  gospel  a  living  force  among  men.  Joy  and 
strength  would  flow  from  this  behef.  Many  a  heart 
that  is  now  as  hard  as  the  rock  of  Horeb  would  be 
smitten  as  by  the  rod  of  the  prophet,  and  would  become 
a  fountain  of  living  water.  Many  a  life  that  is  now  as 
barren  as  the  desert  would  blossom  as  the  rose  under 
the  gracious  influence  of  a  self-forgetting  love. 

My  dear  people,  as  I  ponder  the  work  to  be  done  even 
in  this  community  I  am  overcome  with  a  sense  of  the 
impossibility  of  doing  it  with  the  means  at  command. 
The  sick  and  the  poor  and  the  afflicted  must  be  first  cared 
for.  The  sheep  of  the  flock  must  be  first  shepherded. 
Even  this  would  require  all  the  time  and  strength  of 
double  the  force  of  clergy  that  we  have  in  this  parish  at 
present.  But  this  leaves  the  non-church-going  masses 
— and  they  are  legion — untouched  by  any  aggressive 
Christian  effort.  It  will  not  do  to  stand  still  and  invite 
them  to  come  in.  They  must  be  sought;  they  must 
be  persuaded;  they  must  be  enhghtened. 

How  shall  it  be  done?  The  clergy  are  not  sufficient 
even  to  take  due  care  of  the  Christian  people  of  the 
parish.      How  shall  they  do  any  aggressive  work  or 


The  Layman's  Responsibility  297 

make  any  forward  movement?  My  brethren,  there  is 
an  unutihzed  force  in  the  Church  by  which,  and  by 
which  alone,  this  great  work  of  evangeUzation  can  be 
done.  It  is  the  personal  influence  of  the  laity.  Jeremy 
Taylor  says:  "When  God  would  save  a  man,  He  does  it 
by  way  of  a  man."  Wliy?  Because  man  is  the  best 
witness  for  God;  the  best  revealer  of  God. 

There  is  a  mysterious  power,  inexphcable,  but  most 
real,  most  potent,  which  a  man  may  exert  over  his  fel- 
lows by  his  presence,  by  his  voice,  by  his  eye.  It  is  partly 
the  power  of  mind,  partly  the  power  of  will.  But  how- 
ever we  explain  it,  there  it  is,  a  puissant  force — the 
force  of  personal  persuasion.  We  speak  of  the  power 
of  the  press,  we  wonder  at  the  spell  of  the  orator.  But 
a  single  word  spoken  personally  to  a  man  by  his  fellow 
man  has  often  won  a  heart  and  a  life  to  Christ,  when  the 
printed  page  has  made  no  impression,  and  the  most  elo- 
quent appeals  from  the  pulpit  have  only  produced  a 
transitory  effect. 

It  is  this  power  of  personal  influence,  of  personal  per- 
suasion, that  is  needed  for  the  spread  of  the  gospel  in 
this  community  to-day.  We  have  the  "  salt  "  in  abun- 
dance, if  it  were  only  appHed.  We  have  rich  stores  of 
light,  if  the  obstacles  to  its  diffusion  could  only  be 
removed. 

I  cannot  help  thinking  that  one  great  obstacle  hes  in 
the  fact  that  Christian  men  and  women  no  not  under- 
stand, at  any  rate  do  not  realize,  what  an  exalted  duty 
and  privilege  is  committed  into  their  hands.  And  there- 
fore I  want  to  say  this  morning  as  plainly  and  earnestly 
as  I  can  that  every  Christian  is  called  to  be  a  witness 
of  Christ,  a  revealer  of  God,  a  messenger  of  the  gospel 
among  his  fellows.     You  have  received  the  truth  that 


298         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

you  may  give  it  to  others.  You  are  saved  that  you  may 
help  save  others.  Go,  I  pray  you,  and  fulfil  your  trust. 
Take  your  talent  which  you  have  kept  laid  away  in  a 
napkin  and  use  it  for  God  and  your  fellow  man.  You 
need  not  preach,  but  you  must  testify.  You  must  bear 
your  witness  for  Christ  among  men. 

You  do  not  hestitate  to  use  your  personal  persuasion 
with  men  in  business,  in  the  affairs  of  the  world.     Then 
why  should  you  refrain  from  using  it  for  your  Master  in 
obedience  to  His  own  command?    Are  you  ashamed 
of  Him  who  bore  the  shameful  cross  for  you?    Are  you 
afraid  of  the  whip  of  criticism  if  you  speak  for  Him  who 
for  your  sake  suffered  cruel  scourging  at  the  hands  of 
brutal  soldiers?    0  Christians,  pluck  up  your  courage  and 
be  bold  for  Christ.     Do  not  any  longer  hide  your  light 
under  a  bushel.     I  do  not  say  parade  it,  but  let  it  shine 
in    the    simplest,   most    unpretending  way.     Without 
the  least  particle  of  cant  you  may  as  you  have  oppor- 
tunity speak  a  word  for  Christ.     You  have  collectively 
a  thousand  opportunities  where  I  have  one,  and  in  many 
cases  a  word  from  a  layman  will  find  its  way  into  the 
heart  which  is  on  its  guard  against  the  counsels  of  a 
clergyman.     But  not  by  speaking  only  or  chiefly   are 
you  to  let  your  light  shine.     Let  your  whole  life,  day  by 
day,  hour  by  hour,  be  a  witness  for  Christ;  so  that  men 
may  take  knowledge  of  you  that  you  "have  been  with 
Jesus."     "Whether  ye  eat  or  drink,  or  whatsoever  ye 
do,  do  all  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus." 

"  Go,  labor  on,  spend  and  be  spent; 
Thy  joy  to  do  the  Father's  will. 
It  is  the  way  the  Master  went; 
Should  not  His  servants  tread  it  still? 


The  Layman's  Responsibility  299 

"  Go,  labor  on  while  it  is  day; 
The  world's  dark  night  is  hastening  on. 
Speed,  speed  thy  work,  cast  sloth  away; 
It  is  not  thus  that  souls  are  won. 

"Toil  on,  and  in  thy  toil  rejoice; 
For  toil  comes  rest,  for  exile  home 
Soon  shalt  thou  hear  the  Bridegroom's  voice, 
The  midnight  peal,  '  Behold,  I  come  I ' " 


THE  PLACE   OF  THE  ASCENSION  IN  THE 
ECONOMY  OF  REDEMPTION 

FOR  ASCENSION   DAY 

"  His  mighty  power,  which  He  wrought  in  Christ,  when  He  raised 
Him  from  the  dead,  and  set  Him  at  His  own  right  hand  in  the 
heavenly  places,  far  above  all  principality,  and  power,  and 
might,  and  dominion,  and  every  name  that  is  named,  not  only 
in  this  world,  but  also  in  that  which  is  to  come :  and  hath  put 
all  things  under  His  feet,  and  gave  Him  to  be  the  head  over 
all  things  to  the  Church." — Eph.  i.  19-22. 

The  Christian  year  opens  to  our  minds  an  annual  study 
of  the  evohition  of  the  Hfe  of  Christ,  which  is  also  the 
evolution  of  Christian  doctrine  and  of  Christian  living. 
Each  season  has  its  appointed  and  appropriate  truth 
or  cycle  of  truths.  The  Church,  teaching  us  the  heav- 
enly astronomy,  puts  her  telescope  into  our  hands 
and  bids  us  study  during  the  year  the  entire  circle  of 
the  firmament.  Obeying  her  guidance,  the  Christian 
thinker  discovers,  in  each  several  arc  of  the  whole,  great 
truths  shining  like  glowing  planets  upon  the  soul — truths 
whose  relations  present  ever-fresh  problems  of  thought, 
and  in  the  contemplation  of  which  may  be  found  ever- 
increasing  wonder  and  delight.  Yes,  for  theology,  the 
science  of  God,  is  like  the  physical  sciences,  old  yet  ever 
new.  In  it  too  there  is  progress,  increasing  light,  a 
wider  horizon,  new  realms  of  order  revealing  them- 

300 


The  Ascension  of  Christ  301 

selves,  new  relations  and  correlations  discovered.     It 
is  true,  as  the  poet  sings, 

"Our  little  systems  have  their  day, 
They  have  their  day,  and  cease  to  be; 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 
And  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  more  than  they." 

And  yet  it  is  also  true  that  these  systems  cannot  justly 
be  called  false,  however  imperfect  and  faulty  they  may 
be.  Rather  are  they  like  successive  lenses  of  increasing 
power  through  wliich  we  look  into  the  heavens.  They 
go  on  unto  perfection,  and  through  them  the  deathless 
light  of  the  constellations  of  truth  shines  upon  the  soul 
in  brighter  and  yet  brighter  effulgence,  shining  "more 
and  more  unto  the  perfect  day." 

To-day  we  celebrate  the  Ascension  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  into  heaven,  that  He  might  be  crowned  King 
of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords,  and  receive  at  His  Father's 
right  hand  the  sceptre  of  universal  dominion,  "all 
power  in  heaven  and  in  earth."  It  is  an  event  of  such 
vital  moment  to  the  Christian  faith  that  it  finds  a  place 
among  the  great  historic  facts  blazoned  on  the  standards 
of  the  Church  in  the  Apostles'  Creed. 

What,  then,  is  its  significance? 

I.  And,  first,  what  is  its  relation  to  the  rest  of  the  life 
and  work  of  our  Lord?  I  answer,  the  Ascension  is  the 
completion,  the  crown,  the  consummation  of  the  redeem- 
ing and  saving  work  of  Christ.  That  unique  and  won- 
derful life,  which  has  never  had  a  peer  or  a  parallel  in 
this  sad  earth,  may  be  likened  to  a  glorious  cathedral 
rising  before  us  in  majesty  and  harmony  of  proportion. 
In  the  Incarnation  we  behold  its  foundations  deep  laid 
in  the  eternal  counsels  and  resting  upon  the  rock  of 


302         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

infinite  wisdom  and  infinite  love.  In  the  Nativity,  in 
the  growth  and  expansion  of  His  humanity,  in  His 
wondrous  words  and  works,  in  His  passion  and  death 
and  resurrection,  we  see  the  stately  structure  rising 
into  perfect  harmony  and  beauty,  and  we  hear  it  echo- 
ing with  the  angels'  hymn,  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest, 
on  earth  peace,  good-will  to  men."  To  what  part,  then, 
of  the  wondrous  building  shall  we  compare  the  Ascen- 
sion? It  is  like  the  heaven-piercing  spire  which  rises 
above  the  cathedral.  It  completes  the  great  structure 
of  redemptive  revelation.  Foundations,  porch,  nave, 
aisles,  choir,  sanctuary,  these  all  must  be  crowned  by 
the  spire  which  points,  and  seems  to  lead,  to  heaven. 
Such  is  the  Ascension,  considered  in  relation  to  the  birth, 
the  baptism,  the  life,  the  miracles,  the  teaching,  the 
passion,  the  death,  and  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ. 
It  crowns  and  completes  the  whole. 

The  figure  does  not  exaggerate  its  relative  importance. 
On  the  contrary,  it  falls  short  of  conveying  an  adequate 
conception  of  its  profomid  and  vital  significance  in  the 
Christian  system. 

St.  Peter,  discoursing  to  the  Jews,  on  the  day  of  Pente- 
cost, of  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  declared  that  there 
was  an  internal  necessity  for  it.  It  was  not  possible 
that  He,  the  Prince  of  Life,  could  be  h olden  in  bondage 
by  death.  He  could  not  but  have  risen  from  the  dead. 
There  was  in  like  manner  an  internal  necessity  for  the 
Ascension.  The  risen  Lord  could  not  die  again.  Death 
had  no  more  dominion  over  Him.  Nor  could  earth  hold 
Him  longer.  He  could  not  but  ascend  into  heaven, 
whence  He  came.  He  must  resume  the  place  and  the 
power  which  He  had  relinquished  in  order  to  enter  upon 
His  redeeming  work.     Having  ^come^forth  from^God, 


The  Ascension  of  Christ  303 

He  must  needs  return  to  God.  Having  humbled  Him- 
self to  be  born  of  a  virgin,  and  taken  upon  Him  the  form 
of  a  servant,  He  must  needs  be  exalted  to  the  right  hand 
of  God,  resuming  His  divine  power  and  glory.  The 
Ascension  is  the  necessary  antithesis  of  the  Incarnation. 

But  it  is  more  than  this,  much  more.  It  has  a  direct 
relation  to  Christ's  work.  He  Himself,  in  predicting  it, 
suggested  as  much.  The  apostles  and  evangelists  evi- 
dently so  regarded  it.  They  set  it  before  us  as  the 
crowning  event  in  the  wondrous  manifestation  of  the 
Son  of  Man. 

They  depict  Him  in  the  Ascension  as  a  conqueror  re- 
turning in  triumph  after  winning  the  victory  over  his 
foes.  "When  He  ascended  up  on  high,"  exclaims  St, 
Paul,  "He  led  Captivity  captive."  And  again,  in  his 
Colossian  letter,  he  says  that  Christ,  "having  spoiled 
principalities  and  powers,  made  a  show  of  them  openly, 
triumphing  over  them,"  or  rather,  "  He  displaj'ed  them 
as  a  victor  his  captives,  leading  them  in  triumph." 

Again,  their  language  suggests  the  coronation  and  en- 
thronement of  the  Christ  as  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of 
lords.  So  our  text  declares  that  at  the  Ascension  God 
"  set  Him  at  His  ow^n  right  hand  in  the  heavenly  places^ 
far  above  all  principality  and  power  and  might  and 
dominion,  and  every  name  that  is  named,  not  only  in 
this  world,  but  also  in  that  which  is  to  come,  and  hath 
put  all  things  under  His  feet,  and  gave  Him  to  be  the 
head  over  all  things  to  the  Church." 

Just  here  lies  the  great  interest  and  import  of  the 
Ascension  to  the  Christian,  that  it  was  as  the  Son  of 
Man,  as  the  Christ,  as  the  Head  of  the  Church  that  He 
ascended,  that  He  was  crowned,  that  He  was  set  on  the 
right  hand  of  God  to  wield  the  sceptre  of  universal  do- 


304        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

minion.  It  completes  the  manifestation  of  our  Re- 
deemer, because,  whereas  in  his  earthly  life  we  see  un- 
folded His  prophetic  office,  and  in  His  passion  and 
death  His  priestly  office,  here  in  the  Ascension  and 
session  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father,  His  kingly  .office 
is  displayed. 

We  worship  a  Christ  who  reigns  in  supreme  dominion, 
^ur  pardon  and  peace  are  sealed  with  three  great  seals, 
the  Death  of  Christ,  the  Resurrection  of  Christ,  the 
Ascension  of  Christ.  We  worship,  moreover,  not  a  dead 
Christ,  a  Christ  who  once  trod  this  earth  nineteen  cen- 
turies ago,  but  a  living,  ascended  Christ,  who  has  passed 
into  the  heavens  and  wields  the  sceptre  of  the  universe. 
It  was  such  a  Christ  whom  St.  jitephen  saw  when  he 
met,  with  a  face  like  that  of  an  angel,  the  stones  that 
crushed  out  his  life.  It  was  such  a  Christ  who  gave 
courage  and  victory  to  St.  Ignatius,  to  St.  Polycarp,  to 
the  martyrs  of  Vienne,  to  all  who  through  the  long  ages 
since  the  Ascension  have  yielded  up  their  lives  on  the 
altar  of  their  devotion  to  Him. 

And  then  the  ascended  Christ  is  our  Priest  as  well  as 
our  King.     He  sits  a  Priest  on  His  throne.     His  priestly 

work  was  not  ended  on  the  cross.     "We  have  a ^reat ; 

High-Priest,"  exclaims  the  inspired  author  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  "  that  is  passed  into  the  heavens,  Jesus, 
the  Son  of  God. "  As  the  Jewish  high-priest  entered 
through  the  veil  into  the  Holy  of  Holies  with  the  blood 
of  atonement,  so  Jesus  "  by  His  own  blood  has  entered 
in  once  into  the  Holy  Place,  having  obtained  eternal 
redemption  for  us. "  He  did  not  enter  "  into  the  holy 
places  made  with  hands,  which  are  the  figures  of  the 
true,  but  into  heaven  itself,  now  to  appear  in  the  pres- 
ence of  God  for  us." 


The  Ascension  of  Christ  305 

Yes,  the  ascended  Christ  is  our  Priest  and  Mediator 
and  Intercessor  there  in  the  heaven  of  heavens.  He 
appears  in  the  presence  of  God  for  us.  "  He  ever  Uveth  i/^ 
to  make  intercession  for  us."  The  work  which  He 
began  on  earth  He  continues  in  heaven  for  evermore, 
presenting  in  our  behalf  the  merit  and  the  virtue  of  His 
atoning  sacrifice  for  us. 

It  is  this  perpetual  and  eternally  efficacious  pi'iestly 
work  of  His  for  us  at  the  right  hand  of  God  which  is  the 
basis  of  our  confidence,  the  anchor  of  our  hope.  It  is  be- 
cause the  eye  of  the  Christian  disciple  beholds  by  faith 
His  merciful  and  faithful  High-Priest  in  the  heavens, 
full  of  compassion  and  able  to  be  touched  with  the  feel- 
ing of  our  infirmities — it  is  this  which  gives  him  courage 
and  confidence  and  hope.  It  is  this  which  gives  him 
"boldness"  to  "enter  into  the  holiest,"  aU  unworthy 
as  he  is,  confident  that  his  prayer  wiU  be  heard.  It  is 
this  which  nerves  him  to  "  hold  fast  his  confession "  in 
the  face  of  temptation  and  infirmity,  for  it  is  this  which 
assures  him  that  he  has  "  an  Advocate  with  the  Father, 
Jesus  Christ  the  righteous." 

II.  Closely  related,  indeed  merging  into  this  aspect 
of  the  Ascension,  is  what  may  be  called  its  relation  to 
Christian  ethics,  or  to  the  practical  hfe  of  the  Christian. 

Every  great  sahent  event  in  the  Hfe  of  our  Lord  has  a 
double  aspect,  doctrinal  and  moral.  Each  stands  not 
only  for  a  pivotal  doctrine  of  the  faith,  but  as  a  symbol 
of  a  moral  truth,  and  so  enwraps  a  parable  of  Hfe.  The 
Nativity  of  Christ,  while  teaching  us  the  mystery  of  the 
Incarnation,  is  at  the  same  time  the  symbol  of  the  new 
birth  of  the  soul  by  the  regeneration  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
The  Death  of  Christ,  while  it  sets  before  us  His  atoning 
sacrifice  for  sia  also  symboHzes  the  death  unto  sin,  the 


3o6         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

crucifixion  of  self  to  which  every  Christian  is  called. 
The  Resurrection  of  Christ,  while  it  declares  His  victory 
over  death  and  prefigures  the  resurrection  of  His  people, 
is  also  the  symbol  of  that  rising  of  the  soul  from  the 
death  of  sin  to  the  life  of  righteousness,  to  wliich  the 
Lord  summons  every  disciple  of  His. 

What,  now,  is  the  moral  teaching  of  the  Ascension? 
What  is  the  practical  truth  which  it  symbolizes?  The 
apostle  answers  for  us,  "  If  ye  then  be  risen  with  Christ 
seek  those  things  which  are  above,  where  Christ  sitteth 
at  the  right  hand  of  God.  Set  your  affections  on  things 
above,  not  on  things  on  the  earth."  In  other  words,  the 
__  Ascension  summons  us  to  heavenly-mindedness.  It 
bids  us  aspire  to  the  heavenly  hfe,  the  life  "hid  with 
Christ  in  God,"  the  hfe  that  is  more  than  upright,  more 
than  moral,  the  spiritual  hfe,  the  life  whose  inspiration 
comes  from  the  contemplation  of  that  place  "whither 
our  Saviour  Christ  is  gone  before."  AH  this  is  beauti- 
fully and  strikingly  expressed  in  the  collect  for  Ascension 
-%  day,  wherein  we  are  taught  to  pray  that  "like  as  we  do 
beheve  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  to  have  ascended  into  the 
heavens;  so  we  may  also  in  heart  and  mind  thither 
ascend,  and  with  Him  continually  dwell." 

III.  There  is  another  aspect  of  the  Ascension  to 
which,  in  conclusion,  I  beg  for  a  moment  to  direct  your 
attention.  I  mean  its  relation  to  our  conception  of  the 
destiny  of  man. 

Jesus  Christ  ascended  in  His  divine-human  nature 
into  heaven.  His  triumph,  therefore.  His  coronation. 
His  enthronement,  is  the  exaltation  and  glorification 
of  our  humanity.  It  is  the  Man  Christ  Jesus  who  sits 
upon  the  throne  of  the  universe,  "angels  and  authori- 
ties and  powers  being  subject  unto  Him.".     It  was  the 


The  Ascension  of  Christ  307 

Son  of  Mary  whom  the  wondering  apostles  beheld 
ascending  up  into  heaven,  and  of  whom  the  angel  said 
"Tliis  same  Jesus  which  is  taken  up  from  you  into 
heaven  shall  so  come  in  like  manner  as  ye  have  seen 
Him  go  into  heaven." 

What  a  destiny  is  here  unfolded  for  man!  To  be 
exalted  to  the  same  place  with  Jesus  Christ!  To  be 
made  like  unto  Him!  To  have  these  bodies  "of  our 
humiliation"  fashioned  hke  unto  "the  body  of  His 
glory " !  To  awake  up,  after  the  short  sleep  of  death, 
"in  His  likeness"! 

Biology  tells  the  wondrous  story  of  the  "  ascent  of 
life  "  through  the  long  ages  from  the  animalcule  to  the 
man;  but  Christianity  foretells  the  ascent  of  life  from 
the  human  to  the  divine,  from  the  material  to  the  spirit- 
ual, from  earth  to  heaven,  from  the  sinful  Adam  to  the 
sinless  Christ,  the  second  Adam,  the  Lord  of  Glory! 

Yes,  for  the  Ascension  of  the  Son  of  Man  means  that 
His  disciples  shall  also  ascend  from  this  earthly  life  of 
limitation  and  imperfection,  of  unfulfilled  hopes  and 
unrealized  ideals,  to  that  higher  life  where  as  there  shall 
be  neither  sin  nor  sorrow,  so  there  shall  be  neither  with- 
ered purposes  nor  unripened  achievement,  but  the 
aspirations  of  our  better  nature  shall  be  fulfilled  as  on 
this  sad  earth  they  never  can  be. 

It  is  as  if  the  heavens  were  opened,  and  it  were  per- 
mitted us  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  life  and  the  destiny 
reserved  for  redeemed  humanity  in  the  consummation 
of  all  things,  when  the  long  drama  of  history  shall  have 
closed,  and  God's  eternal  purpose  of  love  for  man  shall 
have  been  achieved,  through  the  unsearchable  riches 
of  grace  manifested  in  the  redemption  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord! 


3o8        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

Well  may  our  hearts  exclaim — 

"  Thou  hast  raised  our  human  nature 
On  the  clouds  to  God's  right  hand; 
There  we  sit  in  heavenly  places, 
There  with  Thee  in  glory  stand. 

"Jesus  reigns,  adored  by  angels  ; 
Man  with  God  is  on  the  throne  ; 
Mighty  Lord,  in  Thine  Ascension, 
We  by  faith  behold  our  own." 


THE   HOLY  COMMUNION 

FOR   THE    SUNDAY   AFTER   ASCENSION   DAY  ; 

"  Come  unto  Me." — Matt.  xi.  28. 

"Come,  for  all  things  are  now  ready." — Luke  xiv,  17. 

"Do  this  in  remembrance  of  Me." — Luke  xxii.  19. 

The  voice  that  speaks  in  these  three  brief  but  im- 
pressive utterances  is  the  voice  of  Jesus,  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth, Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God,  the  Saviour  of  the 
world.  It  comes  to  us  distinct  and  clear  across  the  ages. 
We  justly  marvel  at  the  ingenious  mechanism  whereby 
the  human  voice  travels  a  thousand  miles  in  an  instant 
of  time,  and  is  heard  with  perfect  ease  at  that  great  dis- 
tance. But  here  are  the  echoes  of  a  voice  that  spake 
nineteen  centuries  ago,  and  its  tones  are  heard  by  every 
Christian  ear  in  this  assembly  to-day  as  distinct,  as 
clear,  as  persuasive  as  though  the  Man  of  Nazareth 
stood  here  in  our  midst  before  our  eyes. 

He  invites  us  to  a  feast.  "Come,"  He  says,  "for  all 
things  are  now  ready."  The  Lamb  has  been  slain.  The 
table  is  spread.  "Come."  And  himdreds  of  men  and 
women  in  this  assembly  will  presently  respond  to  His 
invitation,  recognizing  in  yonder  sacrament  a  heavenly 
feast  prepared  by  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  "Come  unto 
Me/'  He  saj^s  again;  "I  am  in  your  midst.  My  unseen 
presence  is  among  you.  I  am  here  in  all  My  power  to 
bless  and  strengthen  and  cheer  you.  Come  unto  Me, 
and  I  will  refresh  you.     I  wiU  give  you  rest."     And  hun- 

309 


3IO        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

dreds  of  us  gladly  rise  and  cast  ourselves  at  His  feet,  con- 
fident He  will  give  us  rest !  Once  more  we  hear  His  lov- 
ing voice.  "  Do  this,"  He  says,  "  in  remembrance  of  Me." 
And  at  the  words  the  scene  at  the  Last  Supper  stands 
before  our  eyes.  We  see  the  Master  bless  and  break 
the  bread,  and  say  to  the  apostles,  "Take,  eat,  this  is 
My  body  which  is  given  for  you.  Do  this  in  remem- 
brance of  Me."  We  see  Him  take  the  cup  and  give  it 
to  them,  saying,  "Drink  ye  all  of  this,  for  this  is  My 
blood  of  the  New  Testament,  which  is  shed  for  you  and 
for  many  for  the  remission  of  sins.  Do  this,  as  oft  as 
ye  shall  drink  it,  in  remembrance  of  Me." 

And  then  our  eyes  turn  to  that  Holy  Table,  and  we 
see  the  same  blessed  sacrament  of  His  body  and  blood, 
"the  Supper  of  the  Lord,"  awaiting  us.  It  stands  there 
in  obedience  to  His  loving  words  of  command,  "  Do  this 
in  remembrance  of  Me."  There  it  has  stood  ever  since 
we  can  remember,  and  ever  since  our  fathers  before  us 
could  remember.  Ay,  and  in  the  old  time  before  them, 
through  the  generations  and  the  centuries.  The  Holy 
Table  of  the  Lord  has  stood  in  the  Christian  Church,  in 
all  lands,  under  all  climes,  back,  back  through  the  ages 
to  the  very  night  in  which  the  Lord  Jesus  was  betrayed, 
when  He  first  said  "  Do  this  in  remembrance  of  Me." 

My  brethren,  let  us  consider  the  divine  institution 
which  these  words  of  Christ  created  nearly  nineteen 
hundred  years  ago. 

It  is  a  visible  ordinance,  and  it  embodies  before  the 
eyes  of  the  worshippers  the  central  truths  of  the  gospel. 
Had  the  records  of  the  evangelists  perished,  these  words 
which  Christ  spake  when  He  instituted  this  sacrament 
would  remain  enshrined  in  the  memory  and  the  heart 
of  the  Church,  preserved  by  perpetual  repetition  from 


The  Holy  Commtmion  311 

week  to  week  through  the  ages.  Had  the  emperor 
Diocletian  succeeded  in  destroying  the  sacred  books  of 
the  Christians,  and  had  the  New  Testament  thus  been 
lost  from  the  earth,  this  Holy  Sacrament  would  have 
kept  alive  among  men  the  memory  of  the  Cross  and 
Passion,  of  the  one  sacrifice  for  sin,  of  the  remission  of 
sins,  "by  the  precious  blood  of  Christ."  For,  let  me 
remind  you,  the  primary  purpose  of  this  sacrament  was, 
to  quote  the  language  of  our  Church  Catechism,  "the 
continual  remembrance  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  death  of 
Christ,  and  of  the  benefits  which  we  receive  thereby." 
Or,  to  use  the  noble  words  of  the  Communion  Office  itself, 
"To  the  end  that  we  should  always  remember  the  ex- 
ceeding great  love  of  our  Master,  and  only  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ,  thus  dying  for  us.  He  hath  instituted  and  or- 
dained holy  mysteries  as  pledges  of  His  love,  and  for  a 
continual  remembrance  of  His  death."  Again,  in  the 
Consecration  Prayer  the  sacrament  is  called,"  a  perpetual 
memory  of  that  His  precious  death  and  sacrifice,"  and 
in  the  Oblation  the  officiating  priest  thus  speaks  on 
behalf  of  the  people,  "  We,  thy  humble  servants,  do  .  .  , 
make  here  before  Thy  divine  majesty  .  .  .  the  memo- 
rial Thy  Son  hath  commanded  us  to  make,  having  in 
remembrance  His  blessed  passion  and  precious  death. 
His  mighty  resurrection  and  glorious  ascension." 

All  this  is  in  harmony  with  the  familiar  words  of  St. 
Paul,  "  As  oft  as  ye  eat  this  bread  and  drink  this  cup, 
ye  do  show  the  Lord's  death  till  He  come."  Yes,  this 
sacrament  is  an  ever  fresh  exhibition  of  the  death  and 
passion  of  our  Saviour  Christ.  It  is  the  perpetual  up- 
lifting of  the  Cross  in  the  midst  of  His  people,  that  they 
may  look  upon  Him  whom  their  sins  have  pierced,  and 
see  in  Him  their  Refuge  and  their  Hope. 


312         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

But  is  this  all?  Is  it  only  a  memorial  and  exhibition 
of  the  death  and  passion  of  Christ  before  men?  Nay, 
my  brethren,  it  is  a  memorial  before  God  also ;  a  memo- 
rial "made  before  the  divine  majesty."  The  Church 
pleads  before  the  Most  High  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  made 
once  for  all  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world.  We  must 
indeed  "take  heed,"  as  our  martyred  Bishop  Ridley 
said,  "lest  of  the  memory  it  be  made  a  sacrifice,"  for 
this  Holy  Sacrament  is  not  a  sacrifice,  but  the  memo- 
rial of  a  sacrifice,  of  the  one  "  perfect  and  sufficient  sac- 
rifice, oblation,  and  satisfaction  for  the  sins  of  the  whole 
world,"  which  Christ  our  great  High-Priest  made  there 
upon  the  Cross.  That  sacrifice  was  made  once  for  all; 
it  cannot  be  repeated;  there  is  no  need  that  it  should 
be.  To  make  the  Holy  Communion  a  propitiatory  sacri- 
fice is  to  completely  change  its  intention  and  its  mean- 
ing; is  to  subvert  it,  to  abolish  it,  to  substitute  some- 
thing else  in  place  of  what  the  Lord  instituted. 

It  is,  however,  the  memorial  made  before  God  by  the 
Church  of  that  supreme  act  of  sacrifice  whereby  Jesus 
Christ  made  propitiation  for  our  sins,  and  not  for  ours 
only  but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world.  In  the 
words  of  our  hymn, 

"And  now,  O  Father,  mindful  of  the  love 

That  bought  us  once  for  all  on  Calvary's  tree, 
And  having  with  us  Him  that  pleads  above, 

We  here  present,  we  here  spread  forth  to  Thee 
That  only  offering,  perfect  in  Thine  eyes. 
The  one  true,  pure,  immortal  sacrifice." 

But  even  this  is  not  all.  There  is  more  here  than  the 
exhibition  before  men,  and  the  commemoration  and 
pleading  before  God  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ;  there  is 


The  Holy  Communion  313 

the  act  of  participation  by  the  worshippers  in  the  conse- 
crated elements.  The  sacrament  was  not  ordained 
merely  to  be  gazed  at.  If  it  were  only  a  memorial,  it 
had  been  sufficient  to  display  the  bread  and  the  wine  in 
the  Church,  and  to  perform  the  manual  acts  of  breaking 
the  one  and  pouring  out  the  other,  with  the  Blessing  and 
Consecration.  But  instead  of  this  the  Lord  commanded 
the  disciples  "Take,  eat,"  and  "Drink  ye  all  of  this." 
The  sacred  elements  are  to  be  received  "  in  remembrance 
of  His  death  and  passion,"  and  the  receivers  are  thereby 
to  be  made  "partakers  of  His  most  blessed  body  and 
blood." 

Let  us  try  to  realize  the  experience  of  a  faithful  com- 
municant approacliing  yonder  Holy  Table.  The  words 
of  the  Conmiunion  Service  have  transported  him  back 
to  the  night  in  which  the  divine  Master  was  betrayed. 
He  has  seen  the  institution  of  the  Holy  Supper  in  the 
upper  room.  He  has  followed  the  Lord  to  the  Garden, 
and  then  to  the  Cross.  He  has  beheld  Him  crucified 
and  slain,  and  has  adoringly  recognized  in  that  act  upon 
the  Cross  the  propitiating  sacrifice  made  by  the  Son  of 
God  for  his  sins.  He  has  then  joined  with  the  officiating 
minister  in  presenting  and  pleading  this  sacrifice  before 
the  Eternal  Father,  "  most  humbly  beseeching  Thee  to 
grant  that  by  the  merits  and  death  of  Thy  Son  Jesus 
Christ  we,  and  all  Thy  whole  Church,  may  obtain  remis- 
sion of  our  sins  and  all  other  benefits  of  His  passion." 

And  now,  with  his  mind  and  heart  filled  with  these 
thoughts  and  aspirations,  he  approaches  and  kneels  at 
the  chancel  rail  to  receive  the  consecrated  bread  and 
wine,  ^^^^at  are  the  words  that  are  now  addressed  to 
him?  "The  body  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which  was 
given  for  thee,  preserve  thy  body  and  soul  unto  ever- 


314         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

lasting  life."  And  again,  "The  blood  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  which  was  shed  for  thee,  preserve  thy  body  and 
soul  unto  everlasting  hfe."  That  is  to  say,  his  thoughts 
are  again  directed  to  the  Cross.  He  is  bidden  to  look 
upon  the  body  of  Christ  given  for  him,  and  upon  the 
blood  of  Christ  shed  for  him,  and  to  believe  that  that 
act  of  sacrificial  love  was  made  for  him,  that  he  is  the 
beneficiary  of  the  Cross.  "The  Son  of  God  loved  me. 
He  gave  Himself  for  me."  And  then  he  is  bidden  be- 
lieve that  this  offering  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ 
on  the  Cross  will  "  preserve  his  body  and  soul  unto  ever- 
lasting life." 

And  now,  with  his  soul  thus  reposing  itself  upon  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Cross,  he  receives  first  the  bread  and  then 
the  wine,  and  is  bidden  "  Take  and  eat  this  in  remem- 
brance that  Christ  died  for  thee,  and  feed  on  Him  in 
thy  heart  by  faith,  with  thanksgiving."  "Drink  this 
in  remembrance  that  Christ's  blood  was  shed  for  thee, 
and  be  thankful."  Thus  from  beginning  to  end  his 
thoughts  are  to  be  turned  "in  remembrance"  to  the 
suffering  Saviour,  to  the  sacred  Cross,  to  the  body 
broken  and  the  blood  shed  on  Calvary.  In  receiving 
"the  outward  and  visible  signs"— the  consecrated  bread 
and  wine— the  communicant  is  directed  to  turn  his 
thoughts  to  the  body  broken  and  the  blood  shed  on 
the  Cross;  and  to  "feed  on  Him,"  not  on  the  bread 
and  wine,  mark  you,  but  "on  Him,"  on  Christ,  hij 
faith,  not  by  sight;  and  "in  thy  heart,"  not  with  'thy 
mouth. 

But  what  is  it  "to  feed  on  Christ  in  the  heart  by 
faith"?  Surely,  brethren,  it  is  to  believe  in  Him,  to 
adore  Him,  to  put  our  whole  trust  in  Him.  It  is  to 
turn  the  soul  to  Him  in  love  and  faith  and  obedience. 


The  Holy  Communion  315 

It  is  actually  to  repose  and  rest  upon  Him  as  our 
Saviour,  as  our  Sacrifice,  as  our  Sin-offering,  as  our 
only  hope  for  Ufe  everlasting. 

WHiat,  then,  has  taken  place  at  the  chancel  rail  in  the 
act  of  receiving  the  Holy  Sacrament?  There  has  been 
a  focahzation  of  faith.  Faith  has  been,  so  to  speak, 
raised  to  the  highest  power.  The  sacrament  has  made 
the  Cross  and  Passion  vivid,  vital  to  the  soul.  The  out- 
ward and  visible  signs — the  bread  and  the  wine — have 
been  made  the  witnesses  and  vehicles  of  the  benefits 
of  His  Passion.  In  the  very  act  of  receiving  them  faith 
has  been  intensified,  and  has  taken  hold  of  Christ,  feed- 
upon  Him,  resting  upon  Him,  believing  in  Him.  Here 
are  two  co-ordinate  acts — eating  and  feeding  by  faith — 
the  one  a  bodily,  material  act,  with  the  mouth,  the 
other  a  spiritual  act,  with  the  heart.  And  so  St.  Paul's 
great  words  are  realized,  "The  bread  which  we  break, 
is  it  not  the  communion  of  the  body  of  Christ?  The  cup 
which  we  bless,  is  it  not  the  communion  of  the  blood 
of  Christ?"  The  consecrated  elements,  thus  received, 
become  the  means  of  reahzing  the  benefits  of  the  body 
and  blood  of  Christ — that  is  to  say,  of  His  Cross  and 
Passion — of  His  sacrifice  for  sin.  Here  we  have  "the 
inward  part "  of  the  sacrament  of  which  the  Catechism 
speaks,  "  The  body  and  blood  of  Christ  which  are  spirit- 
ually (not  carnally,  with  the  mouth,  but  spiritually, 
with  the  spirit)  taken  and  received  by  the  faithful  in 
the  Lord's  Supper." 

Thus  we  expect  a  great  and  a  real  blessing  in  the  re- 
ception of  the  sacrament  of  our  redemption.  It  is  not 
a  mere  "  badge  of  our  profession, "  nor  a  mere  external 
memorial  of  the  Cross,  but  "  a  sure  witness  and  effectual 
sign  of  grace."     By  it  God  the  Holy  Spirit  "  works  in- 


3i6         The  Gospelin  the  Christian  Year 

visibly  in  us,"  and  strengthens  and  confirms  our  faith 
(Art.  XXV).  Yes,  for  this  holy  ordinance  is  of  Christ's 
own  appointment,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  is  solemnly  in- 
voked upon  the  elements  of  bread  and  wine;  so  that  for 
a  double  reason  we  rightly  expect  a  special  blessing  in 
its  faithful  reception. 

The  view  which  I  have  presented,  my  dear  brethren, 
is  that  which  appears  to  me  clearly  reflected  both  in  our 
Articles,  in  our  Catechism,  and  in  our  Communion  Oflice. 
It  is  the  high,  spiritual,  and  heavenly  view  of  the  Holy 
Sacrament.  It  lifts  the  soul  above  the  low,  carnal 
notions  embodied  in  the  Roman  doctrine  of  transub- 
stantiation,  and  all  other  materialistic  conceptions  of 
the  Real  Presence.  We  beheve,  indeed,  in  the  Real 
Presence,  not  in  the  elements  but  in  the  heart  of  the 
worshipper,  as  Keble  sang, 

"In  the  hear     not  in  the  hand." 

We  hear  His  voice  saying,  "  Come  unto  Me/'  and  we  be- 
lieve He  is  here,  in  all  His  power,  in  all  His  majesty,  in 
all  His  divinity— here  to  bless  us  with  heavenly  bless- 
ings—here to  reveal  Himself  in  the  breaking  of  the 
bread  as  He  did  at  Emmaus,  here  to  flood  the  soul  with 
His  grace  and  His  love.     That  other  view,  that  His 
presence  is  to  be  looked  for  in  the  bread  and  the  wine 
is  a  material  view,  a  low  view,  a  view  unworthy  of  the 
majesty  and  glory  of  the  sacrament  of  our  redemption, 
and,  moreover,  it  is  not  the  view  of  the  New  Testament,' 
or  of  the  primitive  Church.     Strangely  enough,   but 
verily  and   indeed,  the    Roman  doctrine  of  transub- 
stantiation   finds   a   complete   refutation   in   the   very 
Canon  of  the  Mass  itself,  because  that,  in  many  of  its 
features,  has  come   down    from  early  times,  er     the 


The  Holy  Communion  317 

New  Testament  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Sacrament  had 
been  corrupted. 

Nevertheless,  let  it  be  plainly  said,  and  clearly  under- 
stood, that  this  Apostolic  Church  of  ours  permits  large 
liberty  of  opinion,  and  does  not  tie  her  children  to 
a  particular  philosophy  of  the  sacraments.  We  may 
agree  to  differ  on  this  subject  in  many  points,  and  upon 
some  which  are  covered  by  the  discussion  this  morning. 
But  it  appears  to  me  the  limit  of  toleration  is  reached 
when  an}'  one  directs  adoration  to  the  elements,  because 
that  contradicts  our  Articles,  does  away  with  the  essen- 
tial nature  of  a  sacrament,  and  inevitably  tends  to 
idolatry. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  my  friends,  let  me  ask  you  to 
listen  again  to  these  three  words  of  Jesus  Christ:  "  Come 
unto  Me;"  "Come,  for  all  things  are  now  ready;" 
"  Do  this  in  remembrance  of  Me. ' ' 

How  impressive  is  this  invitation  of  the  Master,  when 
w^see  the  Holy  Table  before  our  eyes  spread  with  the 
feast  of  His  love!  It  is  His  own  voice  that  bids  us 
come  and  partake  of  yonder  sacrament!  And  how  full 
of  tenderness  and  love!  " Come  unto  Me,"  He  says,  " O 
ye  sorrowing,  sin-burdened  sons  of  men ;  come  unto  Me, 
and  I  will  refresh  you — I  will  give  you  rest.  Come  to 
this  feast  of  My  love;  all  things  are  now  ready.  Every- 
thing is  provided  that  suffering  love  can  prepare.  You 
are  all  invited.  You  are  all  welcome.  There  is  room 
for  you  all  at  My  table.  There  is  pardon  for  every  peni- 
tent sinner.  There  is  forgiveness  full  and  free.  Though 
your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow; 
though  they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall  be  as  wool. 
You  may  have  wandered  far  away.  You  may  have 
strayed  like  a  lost  sheep  far  from  the  fold.     No  matter. 


3i8         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

Only  return  and  repent,  and  the  door  will  be  opened  to 
you.  You  may  be  very  weak.  You  may  feel  yourself 
too  weak  to  stand  alone.  Your  faith  may  be  feeble- 
only  a  spark.  Your  hope  may  be  faint— as  the  first 
streak  of  the  dawn.  You  may  feel  you  hardly  dare  call 
yourself  a  Christian  at  all.  Yet,  O  ye  sons  of  men,  come 
unto  Me;  come  to  this  My  table.  Do  this  in  remem- 
brance of  Me.  The  Cros_s_j_s_.your_only  refuge— you 
o^Aop.^-  Come  anJjS;  beneath  its  shadow.  This, 
My  feast,  is  meant  to  strengthen  you,  to  refresh  you,  to 
increase  youi^faith,  to'gTve  you  new  courage  for  fighting 

the  goodTight  of  a  Christian."  

Men  and  brethren,  what  answer  will  you  make  to  this 
loving  invitation  of  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Man  of  Sorrows, 
who  bore  your  sins  in  His  own  body  on  the  tree?  Will 
you  begin  to  make  excuses?  Will  one,  and  another, 
and  another,  say,  "  I  pratj  Thee  have  me  excused. "  Ah ! 
how  painful,  how  pitiful  it  is  to  hear  men  making  ex- 
cuses for  not  accepting  the  invitation  of  the  Saviour  of 
the  world  to  be  His  guests  at  the  table  which  He  has 
spread  for  them!  One  is  too  much  occupied  with  his 
business,  another  with  his  pleasures,  another  is  too  much 
pressed  by  cares  and  anxieties,  another  feels  himself  too 
unworthy— though  the  Master  invites  the  publicans 
and  sinners  to  come,  another  is  afraid  he  couldn't  hold 
out— though  the  omnipotent  Saviour  says,  "I  will  be 
thy  strength— as  thy  day  so  shall  thy  strength  be." 
And  shall  I  say  it  ?— yet  another  answers  that  he 
doesn't  consider  the  sacrament  at  all  necessary,  nor 
does  he  see  any  benefit  to  be  derived  from  it. 

What  answers  are  these  to  give  to  that  thorn-crowned 
suffering  Saviour,  who  asks  a  place  in  our  memory,  in 


The  Holy  Communion  319 

our  hearts,  in  our  devotion,  saying  so  appealingly^  to 
if§''all^  "  Do  thiS'inremembrance  of  Me!" 
■"^h,  some  of  you  have  cohtiiiuea  for  long  years 
making  these  pitiful  excuses  in  reply  to  the  great  invi- 
tation of  the  Master.  Will  you  do  the  same  on  the 
approaching  Wliitsunday?  Will  you  again  refuse  to 
come?  Will  you  again  on  that  great  feast  day  turn 
your  backs  on  this  Holy  Table?  Will  you  once  more 
decline  to  be  numbered  among  the  disciples  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth? 

If  you  do,  then  as  you  go  out  of  yonder  door,  turning 
away  from  Christ,  let  His  sorrowful  lamentation  over 
those  who  refuse  His  salvation  echo  again  and  again  in 
your  ears :  "  Ye  will  not  come  unto  Me  that  ye  might 
have  life ! "     "  Ye  will  not  come !     Ye  will  not  come ! " 

It  is  the  unavaihng  lament  of  Infinite  Love  over  a 
perishing  soul! 


A  MODERN  PENTECOST  AND   ITS  LESSON 


FOR   WHITSUNDAY 


"And  the  seventh  angel  sounded;  and  there  were  great  voices  in 
heaven,  saying,  The  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  become  the 
kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ ;  and  He  shall  reign 
for  ever  and  ever." — Rev.  xi.  15. 

On  this  great  feast  of  Whitsunday,  the  birthday  of 
the  Church,  when  we  celebrate  the  Pentecostal  effu- 
sion of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  the  little  band  of  the  disci- 
ples of  Christ,  whereby  men  of  many  tongues  were  fused 
into  one  army  of  the  living  God,  and  given  power  and 
inspiration  to  go  forth  for  the  conquest  of  the  world  to 
Christ,  I  purpose  directing  your  thoughts  to  an  event 
of  current  Church  history  which  illustrates  the  out- 
pouring of  the  same  Spirit  of  God  upon  the  disciples 
of  Jesus,  making  them  speak  the  same  language  of  faith 
and  hope,  and  bestowing  upon  them  similar  grace  and 
power  for  the  conversion  of  men  from  darkness  to  light 
and  from  the  power  of  Satan  to  God.  We  shall  witness 
a  Pentecostal  scene  and  read  a  Pentecostal  lesson  in  our 
own  land. 

A  remarkable  and  memorable  scene  was  witnessed 
last  Thursday  week  *  in  the  most  venerable  of  our  New 
York  churches,  that  beautiful  and  noble  Gothic  struc- 
ture which  stands  in  the  midst  of  its  quiet  graveyard, 
at  the  head  of  Wall  Street,  hfting  its  spire  heavenward, 

*  This  sermon  was  preached  on  Sunday.  Mav  20th,  1900. 

320 


A  Modem  Pentecost  and  its  Lesson        321 

a  silent  reminder  of  the  spiritual  life  and  the  spiritual 

world  in  the  very  centre  of  the  most  intense  commercial 
life  on  the  globe,  and  opening  its  doors  in  perpetual 
invitation  to  the  men  of  the  stock  exchanges  and  the 
money  markets  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
seek  the  riches  and  the  inheritance  that  are  incorrupti- 
ble and  that  fade  not  away. 

Too  often  that  invitation  and  that  reminder  go  un- 
heeded, as  if  the  great  world  of  Wall  Street  had  no  time 
to  give  a  thought  to  another  world  or  to  Uft  a  prayer 
to  heaven. 

But  on  the  occasion  to  which  I  refer  it  was  otherwise. 
The  great  church  was  thronged  to  the  doors  at  noon 
with  the  busy  men  of  the  world's  great  exchanges.  And 
for  what  purpose?  To  attend  a  meeting  in  the  interest 
of  Foreign  Missions,  to  hear  the  farewell  words  of  some  of 
the  devoted  men  who  had  come  from  the  four  quarters 
of  the  globe  to  tell  what  great  things  God  had  done  by 
their  instrumentality  for  the  upbuilding  of  the  kingdom 
of  Jesus  Christ  among  the  divers  peoples  and  nations 
of  the  earth.  Truly  a  wonderful,  an  unprecedented 
thing — something  never  heard  before  in  the  history  of 
Wall  Street  or  in  the  history  of  Trinity  Church — Wall 
Street  emptying  itself  into  Trinity  Church  to  hear  the 
news  of  the  progress  of  the  world-wide  battle  of  the 
Christian  religion  in  the  dark  places  of  the  earth  against 
the  kingdom  of  sin,  Satan,  and  death! 

It  was  a  striking  phenomenon,  and  one  full  of  sug- 
gestion and  significance  to  the  thoughtful  observer. 
The  business  men  of  New  York  had  been  arrested  by 
the  message  which  the  soldiers  of  the  Cross  had  brought 
from  "  the  far-flung  battle-line  "  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
For  the  moment,  for  the  hour  at  least,  the  interests  of 


322         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

the  moral  and  religious  sphere  rose  in  something  of  their 
overshadowing  importance,  in  something  of  their  unap- 
proachable sublimity,  before  the  minds  and  thoughts  of 
the  men  who  reign  as  kings  in  the  commercial  and  finan- 
cial spheres  of  the  world. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  remarkable  phenomenon. 
Another  appeared  in  the  bare  fact  that  such  a  meeting 
should  be  held  in  such  a  place,  a  union  missionary  meet- 
ing in  the  most  conspicuous  Episcopal  church  in  New 
York,  an  English  Canon  and  an  American  Bishop  min- 
gling their  exhortations  with  those  of  a  Baptist  minister 
and  a  Presbyterian  layman,  all  with  the  consent  and 
approbation  of  the  most  eminent  rector  in  our  American 
Church,  Rev.  Dr.  Morgan  Dix. 

I  call  this,  too,  an  incident  full  of  significance. 

Wliat  does  it  signify?  It  does  not  signify  that  the 
divisions  of  our  Protestant  Christianity  are  not  to  be 
deplored,  or  that  the  principles  for  which  our  Apostolic 
and  Catholic  Church  stands  are  not  of  great  importance. 
But  it  does  signify  that,  notwithstanding  all  our  divi- 
sions and  all  our  differences,  we  are  one  in  Christ  Jesus, 
one  in  the  great  fundamental  truths  and  beliefs  em- 
bodied in  the  ancient  Creeds  of  the  Church,  one  in  the 
sublime  purpose  of  winning  the  world  to  the  love  and 
service  of  Jesus  Christ,  one  in  the  conviction  that  the 
first  duty  of  the  followers  of  our  divine  Master  is  to 
preach  Christ  crucified  as  the  power  of  God  unto  salva- 
tion. 

And  it  signifies  also  that  the  love  of  Christ  is  a  bond 
of  union  between  us  which  breaks  down  all  barriers 
and  makes  us  one  body  in  Him. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  such  phenomena  as  these  did 
not  occur  by  accident.     They  were  the  result,  as  you 


A  Modem  Pentecost  and  its  Lesson        323 

know,  of  that  marvellous  Missionary  Conference,  which 
for  ten  days  previous  had  been  in  session  in  New  York. 
That  conference  was  in  fact  a  great  council  of  war  held 
by  some  of  the  leaders  and  captains  of  the  army  of  Jesus 
Christ  which  had  gone  forth  to  win  pagan  lands  to  the 
service  and  obedience  of  the  Cross.  They  came  from 
every  quarter  of  the  globe,  and  the  story  of  battle  and 
conflict,  victory  and  defeat,  and  victory  again,  was  so 
full  of  interest  and  inspiration  that  the  great  city  held 
its  breath  and  listened  and  wondered.  Yes,  and  the 
whole  continent  heard  the  echo  and  stopped  to  give 
heed.  It  was  as  if  the  seventh  angel  of  our  text  had 
sounded  and  the  great  voices  had  come  do-vm  from 
heaven  saying,  "  The  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  becom- 
ing the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ;  and 
He  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever." 

The  Bishop  of  New  York  and  the  Rector  of  Trinity 
Church  called  that  meeting  in  that  venerable  sanctuary, 
because  they  rightly  judged  that  so  extraordinary  an 
event  as  the  assembling  of  that  Ecumenical  Missionary 
Conference  should  be  earnestly  pondered  and  its  message 
deeply  laid  to  heart  by  the  churchmen  and  the  business 
men  of  New  York.  My  brethren,  I  deeply  share  that 
feeling  and  that  opinion.  That  Conference  was  one  of 
those  events  which  is  more  divine  than  human.  The 
hand  of  God  was  behind  it.  The  Spirit  of  God  was 
in  it.  And  we,  your  ministers,  shall  fail  of  our  duty  as 
messengers  of  God  if  we  do  not  earnestly  call  upon  our 
people  to  listen  to  the  message  which  it  brings  us  from 
God.     What  is  that  message? 

I.  Well,  in  the  first  place,  I  think  it  is  an  impressive 
reminder  that  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  rightfully 
part  of  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  that 


324         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

it  is  the  purpose  and  decree  of  God  that  ultimately  His 
dominion  over  them  will  be  achieved. 

It  is  well  that  the  Church  should  realize,  in  a  way 
she  is  far  from  doing  now,  that  the  ascended  Jesus  is 
King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords;  that  He  has  estab- 
lished His  kingdom  on  the  earth ;  that  He  claims  domin- 
ion over  the  whole  human  race,  which  He  has  redeemed 
by  His  blood;  that  the  ''increasing  purpose"  which 
"  through  the  ages  runs,"  "  the  one  far-off  divine  event," 
towards  which  all  things  are  moving,  and  to  which  the 
complicated  influences  of  historical  development  are 
slowly  leading  the  human  race,  is  the  establishment  of 
the  kingdom  of  the  King  of  I^ove  and  Truth  in  the  hearts 
of  men  all  over  the  world. 

We  have  been  brought  in  this  conference  face  to  face 
with  hundreds  of  consecrated  men  and  w^omen,  who  are 
profoundly  convinced  of  this,  and  of  whom  it  may  be 
said  that  the  purpose  and  passion  of  their  lives  is  to 
build  up  that  kingdom  in  the  dark  places  of  the  earth, 
at  whatever  sacrifice,  not  counting  their  lives  dear  unto 
themselves  if  they  may  only  be  true  and  faithful  to  this 
sublime  idea. 

It  may  be  that  this  faith  of  theirs  will  rebuke  our 
unbelief,  and  that  in  our  hearts,  too,  shall  be  kindled 
the  faith  and  the  confidence  that  the  real  purpose  of  the 
world,  and  the  real  end  of  the  complicated  movements 
of  civilization  through  the  long  cycles  of  history,  is  the 
estabhshment  of  Christ's  kingdom  of  truth  and  right- 
eousness and  love  over  the  whole  human  race.  Men  of 
science  are  at  last  discovering,  as  the  dark  niglit  of 
Materialism  passes  away,  that  the  world  has  after  all 
a  spiritual  origin  in  Infinite  Wisdom  and  Power  and 
Love.     It  is  for  the  Church  to  proclaim  (but  first  to 


A  Modem  Pentecost  and  its  Lesson        325 

realize)  that  the  world  and  life  and  human  struggle 
and  development  have  a  spiritual  motive  and  purpose 
and  destiny,  even  the  realization  in  universal  humanity 
of  the  ideal  which  Jesus  proclaimed  when  He  trod  this 
earth,  so  that  in  the  end  the  kingdoms  of  this  world 
shall  become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  His 
Christ. 

11.  But  this  is  only  one  part  of  the  message  of  this 
phenomenal  conference.  Inseparable  from  it  is  the 
further  truth  that  the  Saviour  of  men  has  committed 
to  His  Church  the  duty  of  extending  and  building  up 
His  kingdom  among  men.  This  in  fact  was  the  primary 
duty  laid  upon  the  conscience  of  the  Church  by  her 
Founder.  It  formed  an  integral  part  of  the  charter 
of  her  existence:  "Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach 
the  gospel  to  every  creature  ;  .  .  .  and,  lo,  I  am  with  you 
ahvay,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world."  Thus  the  prom- 
ise of  His  presence  with  His  Church  was  indissolubly 
linked  with  the  fulfilment  of  the  duty  of  preaching  the 
gospel  to  every  creature.  If  the  Church  should  neglect 
the  duty  she  would  have  no  right  to  claim  the  promise. 

Of  course  we  all  know  this.  Year  by  year  at  the 
Ascension  and  the  Pentecostal  seasons  it  is  impressed 
upon  us,  or  at  least  it  ought  to  be.  For  year  by  year 
we  read  in  the  Acts  and  in  the  four  Gospels  that  the 
last  message  and  command  of  the  Master  to  His  Church 
before  His  Ascension  was  that  she  should  proclaim  His 
gospel  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth. 

Yet  in  the  face  of  all  this  the  Church  has  not  realized 
and  accepted  her  duty  to  extend  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth.  She  has  narrowed 
the  horizon  of  her  interest  and  of  her  efforts.  She  has 
acted  as  if  her  commission  was  "  go  into  all  America, " 


326         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

or  "go  into  all  the  United  States,"  or  "go  into  all  the 
State  in  which  you  happen  to  live." 

Thus  she  has  nullified  the  law  of  her  Founder;  she 
has  altered  the  charter  which  He  gave  her,  and  in  so 
doing  she  has  so  far  forfeited  His  great  promise,  "Lo, 
I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world." 

Two  hundred  years  ago,  when  the  Venerable  Soci- 
ety for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  was  formed  in 
our  mother  Church  of  England,  there  was  a  faint  stir 
and  movement  in  the  direction  of  fulfilling  the  great 
command  and  returning  to  the  divine  ideal  of  the 
Church.  Then  just  one  hundred  years  ago  there  was  a 
deeper  and  truer  awakening,  and  gradually  interest 
has  deepened  and  the  field  of  missionary  labor  has 
widened,  until  the  work  of  Protestant  Churches  among 
the  heathen,  in  almost  every  land  and  clime,  has  grown 
to  impressive  proportions.  The  Ecumenical  Conference 
has  mirrored  this  fact  before  the  eyes  of  us  all. 

But  still,  my  brethren,  the  Church  is  only  beginning 
to  awake  to  her  duty  and  her  responsibility.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  the  great  majority  of  her  members  take 
but  a  languid  interest  in  the  conversion  of  the  world, 
and  give  but  a  meagre  and  unworthy  supjDort  to  the 
efforts  that  are  making  to  preach  the  gospel  to  every 
creature. 

A  great  heresy  and  a  great  scepticism  stand  in  the 
way  of  the  Church's  fulfilling  her  duty  in  this  connection. 
The  heresy  is  this,  that  the  gospel  is  a  blessing  which 
we  have  received  for  our  own  benefit,  for  the  enlighten- 
ment of  our  own  minds,  for  the  moral  regeneration  of 
our  own  lives,  for  the  salvation  of  our  own  souls — this 
and  nothing  more.  I  call  this  a  most  dangerous  heresy, 
because  it  drops  completely  out  of  view  one  half  of  the 


A  Modem  Pentecost  and  its  Lesson        327 

truth.  The  gospel  is  a  trust,  as  well  as  a  gift.  It  is 
given  us  not  for  ourselves  only  but  for  others  as  well. 
It  is  a  torch  which  it  is  our  duty  to  hold  aloft  to  guide 
the  steps  of  our  fellow  men,  lost  like  ourselves  in  the 
darkness  of  sin.  It  is  a  divine  remedy  for  human  souls — 
the  balm  of  Gilead — given  to  us  to  be  passed  on  to 
others.  We  hold  it  as  trustees  for  the  good  of  the  world. 
And  if  we  do  not  seek  to  extend  its  benefits  to  our  fellow 
men  we  are  guilty  of  a  betra3^al  of  trust  of  the  most 
serious  nature. 

Now  this  is  what  nine  tenths  of  our  people  do  not 
recognize — at  any  rate  do  not  realize.  They  have  never 
awaked  to  the  fact  that  they,  individually,  have  any 
responsibility  for  making  the  kingdoms  of  this  world 
the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ. 

Yet,  as  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  has  said,  it  is 
"assuredly  one  of  the  great  truths  of  the  gospel  that 
every  Christian,  without  exception,  ought  to  make  it  a 
part  of  his  religion  to  make  known  the  faith  of  the  gospel 
to  all  nations." 

My  brethren,  ponder  this  weighty  statement,  from  the 
lips  of  the  most  venerable  bishop  in  the  Anglican  com- 
munion, "  Every  Christian,  without  exception,  ought  to 
make  it  a  part  of  his  religion  to  make  known  the  faith 
of  the  gospel  to  all  nations." 

It  reminds  one  of  what  Max  Miiller,  speaking  as  a 
scientific  student  of  the  world's  religions,  said  in  1876, 
in  Westminster  Abbey:  "Every  Christian  is,  or  ought 
to  be,  a  missionary."  Do  you  realize  this?  Do  you 
believe  it?  Or  is  it  not  so  that  you  look  upon  the  mak- 
ing Christ  and  His  gospel  known  to  all  nations  as  some- 
thing quite  "  outside  the  ordinary  course  of  the  service  of 
God — a  thing  that  some  men  may  take  up  because  they 


328        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year* 

are  interested  in  it,"  but  which  is  by  no  means  obh- 
gatory  upon  all  Christians  just  because  they  are  Chris- 
tians? But,  my  dearly  beloved  in  the  Lord,  let  me  beg 
you  to  consider  whether  the  great  archbishop  is  not  right 
when  he  demands  if  "  it  is  possible  for  Christians  never 
to  think  about  it,  to  labor  for  it,  or  to  pray  for  it,  and 
yet  still  to  be  living  a  Christian 's  life  "  ? 

Ah,  it  is  a  very  vital  matter  which  is  involved  here; 
not  a  mere  matter  of  taste  or  preference  or  opinion, 
but  the  substance  and  essence  of  our  Christianity.  The 
Christianity  of  Christ  demands  that  every  Christian 
have  an  interest  and  bear  a  part  in  making  the  kingdoms 
of  this  world  to  become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and 
of  His  Christ.  (And  let  us  remember  that  all  Chris- 
tianity that  is  not  the  Christianity  of  Christ  is  unreal, 
unreliable,  false.)  You  see,  then,  that  the  question 
whether  a  man  thinks  and  prays  and  labors  for  the 
conversion  of  the  world  to  Christ  is  a  question  which 
is  in  reality  decisive  of  the  quality  of  his  Christianity. 
It  determines  whether  he  has  any  vital  hold  upon  the 
Christianity  of  Christ. 

Think  of  it,  my  brethren,  to  know  that  Jesus  Christ 
came  to  save  the  world,  and  never  to  pray  for  the  salva- 
tion of  the  world,  never  to  put  forth  any  effort  for  its 
salvation,  not  even  to  be  interested  in  the  issue  of  the 
battle  that  is  waging  far  off  on  the  frontiers  of  civiliza- 
tion between  the  armies  of  the  Christ  and  the  powers 
of  heathen  darkness — I  ask  is  this  by  any  possibility 
compatible  with  real  Christian  faith? 

One  word  more  in  this  connection.  I  said  a  moment 
ago  that  a  great  heresy  and  a  great  scepticism  stand  in 
the  way  of  the  Church's  fulfilling  her  mission  of  winning 
the  world  for  Christ.     Of  the  heresy  I  have  spoken. 


A  Modem  Pentecost  and  its  Lesson        329 

Let  me  now  for  a  single  moment  speak  of  the  scepti- 
cism. 

It  is  a  scepticism  both  concerning  the  curse  of  heathen- 
ism and  the  efficacy  of  the  gospel.  So  much  has  been 
written  in  praise  of  the  Koran  and  the  Zend  Avesta,  and 
other  sacred  books  of  the  East,  that  the  impression  has 
gone  abroad  that  Mohammedans  and  Buddhists,  and 
even  Brahmanists  and  Confucianists,  are,  after  all,  not 
in  any  dire  need  of  the  teachings  of  Christianity.  And 
liand  in  hand  with  this  has  gone  the  doubt  whether  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  really  has  power  to  conquer  those  hoary 
systems  of  religion  that  dominate  the  East. 

Now,  it  is  a  great  part  of  the  blessing,  which  in  the 
providence  of  God  will,  I  believe,  result  from  this  Ecu- 
menical Conference,  that  it  suppUes  a  complete  refuta- 
tion of  both  these  forms  of  scepticism. 

Do  you  ask  how?  I  answer,  because  it  has  attracted 
the  attention  of  men  to  the  overwhelming  evidence  of 
the  utter  failure  of  these  non-Christian  faiths,  their  pow- 
erlessness  to  uplift  or  regenerate  the  peoples  who  have 
embraced  them,  and  the  wretched  social  and  moral 
conditions  of  their  adherents.  The  evidence  had  been 
long  since  accessible;  but  the  Conference  has  in  a  re- 
markable degree  compelled  attention  to  its  significance. 

And  then,  in  addition  to  this,  the  Conference  has 
magnificently  demonstrated  the  adequacy  of  the  gospel 
to  convert  and  save  peoples  of  all  faiths  and  of  all  possi- 
ble diversities  of  development. 

In  conclusion,  my  dear  brethren,  I  do  entreat  you  to 
lay  to  heart  the  great  issues  which  the  Spirit  of  God 
would  teach  us  through  the  instrumentality  of  this 
Conference  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Cross. 

Realize  the  exalted  privilege  which  is  given  you  as  th 


330         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

disciples  of  Christ— to  have  part  by  prayer  and  effort 
in  winning  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  to  the  obedience 
of  the  Son  of  God!  Recognize  the  degradation  and  the 
bondage  and  the  darkness  of  the  nations  that  know  not 
the  everlasting  gospel,  and  be  moved  with  compassion 
on  their  behalf!  Beheve  in  the  adequacy  of  that  gospel 
for  all  nations  and  peoples  and  tongues!  Listen  for 
the  tidings  that  come  from  the  "  far-flung  battle-hne" 
of  the  armies  of  the  Cross !  Be  inspired  by  the  specta- 
cle of  the  splendid  heroism  of  the  soldiers  of  Christ  in 
every  land,  on  every  shore,  and  in  the  islands  of  the  sea, 
where  Paganism  still  rules.  Remember  that  you  be- 
long to  the  same  great  army  of  the  living  God,  and  that 
on  you  is  devolved  the  sacred  duty,  to  you  is  given  the 
inestimable  privilege,  of  sustaining  the  men  at  the  front 
by  your  prayers,  by  your  sympathy,  and  by  your  liber- 
aUty.  In  a  word,  learn  the  Pentecostal  lesson  of  that 
Pentecostal  scene  here  in  our  western  land. 


THE   LIGHT   OF   THE   HOLY   TRINITY 

FOR   TRINITY    SUNDAY 

"  The  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love  of  God,  and  the 
communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  be  with  you  all.     Amen." 

II.  Cor.  xiii.  14. 

We  celebrate  to-day  the  feast  of  the  Holy  Trinity. 
After  the  great  cycle  of  festivals  which  commemorate 
the  evangelic  facts  and  events  that  encircle  the  Incar- 
nation as  the  planets  do  the  sun,  came  the  "  day  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,"  Whitsunday,  commemorating  the  descent 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  baptism  of  the  infant  Church 
with  power  from  on  high. 

And  now,  after  Whitsunday,  comes  Trinity  Sunday, 
the  day  wliich  celebrates  the  wondrous  and  blessed  reve- 
lation of  the  triune  nature  of  God,  when  we  are  called 
upon  to  "  acknowledge  the  glory  of  the  Eternal  Trinity, 
and  in  the  power  of  the  divine  majesty  to  worship  the 
Unity." 

It  is  a  natural,  a  logical  sequence.  The  contempla- 
tion of  the  great  facts  of  Redemption,  the  Incarnation, 
the  Atonement,  the  Resurrection,  the  Ascension,  and 
the  Descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  leads  the  mind  to  reflect 
upon  the  nature  of  the  divine  Being  who  has  thus  re- 
vealed Himself  to  man. 

It  is  natural  to  turn  from  beholding  the  rainbow  to 
look  at  the  sun  whence  all  its  wondrous  beauty  proceeds. 
The  eye  is  ravished  with  the  spectacle  of  the  prismatic 

331 


^T,2         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

bow  spanning  the  sky,  and  then  the  mind  almost  by 
necessity  begins  to  reflect  upon, the  nature  of  that  sun- 
light which  can  paint  such  an  arc  across  the  horizon. 

As  naturally,  I  think,  the  mind  of  the  Church  has 
turned  from  the  glorious  revelation  of  the  divine  attri- 
butes in  redemption — that  rainbow  of  hope  and  peace 
to  man — to  contemplate  the  divine  nature  itself.  Who 
and  what  is  the  God  who  has  spoken  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ, 
who  has  entered  into  the  very  minds  and  hearts  of  men 
through  the  Holy  Ghost?  How  are  we  to  think  of  Him 
whom  Jesus  came  (so  He  tells  us)  to  reveal?  How  far 
can  we  form  any  true  conception  of  Him? 

The  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Trinity  is  the  answer  which 
Christian  thought  has  given  to  this  question.  Ages  of 
devout  and  intense  reflection  have  been  given  to  its 
formulation.  The  Church  has  travailed  to  bring  to 
birth  its  thought  on  this  profound  theme.  And  not  in 
vain.  For  the  ancient  symbol  of  Nicsea  has  been  not 
only  the  banner  of  the  faith  of  the  Christian  world  dur- 
ing sixteen  centuries,  but  it  has  been,  and  is  to-day, 
a  very  fountain  of  life  and  truth  to  myriads  of  earnest 
thinkers  striving  after  harmony  of  thought  concerning 
this  greatest  of  all  themes,  the  Being  of  God. 

It  is  of  this  sublime  doctrine  that  I  want  to  talk  with 
you  a  little  to-day,  my  friends.  Before  we  open  the 
subject,  however,  let  me  try  to  brush  away  an  obstacle 
which  stands  in  the  way  of  any  useful  discussion. 

People  are  apt  to  think  that  the  Trinity  is  a  thorny 
and  difficult  doctrine,  very  well  for  theologians  to  dis- 
pute about,  but  quite  out  of  place  in  the  pulpit,  if  the 
purpose  of  the  pulpit  is  to  help  men  and  women  to  bear 
the  burdens,  to  fulfil  the  duties,  and  to  overcome  the 
temptations  of  life.     It  is  a  doctrine,  in  fact,  which  we  are 


The  Light  of  the  Holv  Trinity  333 

inclined  to  look  upon  as  a  theological  puzzle,  which  plain 
people  really  need  not  bother  their  heads  about,  or,  at 
any  rate,  can  get  no  practical  help  or  comfort  out  of. 
Once  a  year,  it  may  be,  we  try  to  listen  to  a  sermon  on 
the  subject  on  Trinity  Sunday,  as  in  duty  bound,  but 
we  are  glad  when  it  is  over — gladder  than  usual — and 
quickly  dismiss  the  subject  from  our  minds.  Indeed, 
many  Christians  believe  the  doctrine  in  a  bhnd,  unin- 
telligent fashion,  take  it,  as  it  were,  with  their  eyes 
shut,  as  something  they  have  to  believe,  if  they  would 
be  orthodox — and  of  course  they  want  to  be  orthodox — 
instead  of  believing  it,  as  they  might,  with  all  their 
mind  and  with  all  their  heart,  as  a  truth  full  of  comfort 
and  inspiration  and  peace  to  the  devout  soul. 

Now,  I  grant  that  there  is  a  way  of  writing  and 
preaching  about  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  which  justi- 
fies the  feeling  I  have  described.  As  you  listen  to  such 
sermons  you  must  feel  as  Ezekiel  did  when  he  found 
himself  in  the  midst  of  the  valley  of  dry  bones.  "  Be- 
hold," he  said,  "there  were  very  many,  and,  lo,  they 
were  very  dry." 

But  I  think  it  is  possible — I  know  it  is  for  some  men  ; 
I  wish  it  might  be  for  me  this  morning — to  so  speak  of 
this  sublime  doctrine  that  men  shall  have  a  very  differ- 
ent feeling  about  it,  shall  recognize  that  it  is  the  ex- 
pression of  a  truth  full  of  light  and  inspiration  for  our 
every-day  life,  a  truth  not  only  to  wonder  at  but  to 
rejoice  in  and  to  be  thankful  for.  Yes,  the  thought 
of  the  triune  God — Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost — is 
ineffably  sweet,  when  we  realize  that  it  brings  into  our 
lives  and  our  homes  the  strength  of  a  divine  Father- 
hood, the  redeeming  help  of  a  divine  Mediator,  and 
the  sympathy  of  a  divme  Comforter. 


334         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

We  are  told  by  his  biographer  that  Phillips  Brooks 
rejoiced  in  the  theme  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  "  As  Trinity 
Sunday  came  it  found  him  ready  and  eager  to  speak." 

It  was  to  him  "the  high  intellectual  festival  of  the 
Christian  Church,  and  he  came  up  to  it  bringing  the 
richest  tribute  he  could  offer."  He  gloried  in  the  doc- 
trine because  of  the  richness  of  the  idea  of  God  which 
it  involved.     To  him  it  "  palpitated  with  life." 

In  some  such  spirit,  by  God's  help,  let  us  try  to  ap- 
proach the  subject  to-day. 

Out  of  many  passages  in  the  New  Testament  embody- 
ing the  truth  of  the  Trinity  I  select  the  words  of  St. 
Paul,  so  familiar  to  us  in  the  apostolic  grace :  "  The  grace 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love  of  God,  and  the  com- 
munion of  the  Holy  Ghost  be  with  you  all.     Amen." 

Look  at  these  words  and  ponder  for  a  moment  their 
meaning.  Here  is  no  string  of  metaphysical  distinctions, 
but  an  aspiration  for  divine  benediction  upon  his  Corin- 
thian disciples.  They  had  all  been  baptized  "into  the 
name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."  Now  the  apostle  prays  that  they  may  realize 
the  love  of  their  Father  God,  the  grace  of  the  Son,  the 
Lord  Jesus  Clmst,  and  the  communion,  that  is,  the 
fellowship,  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

"  The  love  of  God ! "  What  was  that,  and  in  what,  above 
all,  did  it  find  expression?  We  cannot  hesitate  a  mo- 
ment for  the  answer.  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He 
gave  His  only-begotten  Son  that  whosoever  believeth 
in  Him  should  not  perish  but  have  everlasting  life." 
"  The  grace  of  Christ !"  What  was  that?  Again  the  an- 
swer comes  quickly :  "  Ye  know  the  grace  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  that  though  He  was  rich,  yet  for  your 
sakes  He  became  poor,  that  ye,  through  His  poverty, 


The  Light  of  the  Holy  Trinity  335 

might  be  rich."  Yes,  He  was  "in  the  form  of  God," 
yet  "emptied  Himself  and  took  upon  Him  the  form 
of  a  servant,"  and  "was  made  in  the  hkeness  of  men," 
and  "became  obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death  of 
the  Cross."  And  "the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost"  ! 
What  was  that?  It  was  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  of 
Jesus:  "I  will  pray  the  Father  and  He  will  give  you 
another  Comforter,  that  He  ma}^  abide  with  you  for- 
ever, even  the  Spirit  of  Truth."  "  He  will  guide  you 
into  all  truth." 

You  sec,  then,  that  we  have  here  in  our  text  St.  Paul's 
aspiration  or  prayer  that  his  Corinthian  disciples  may 
enter  into  and  enjoy  the  full  significance  of  the  Name 
into  which  they  had  been  baptized.  It  was  the  name 
of  God.  It  was  a  triune  name — Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost.  And  the  great  apostle  pra5'^s  that  they  may 
realize  its  meaning,  and  have  in  their  hearts  and  lives 
the  benediction  of  the  love  of  the  Father,  the  grace  of 
the  Son,  and  the  fellowship  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

You  see  also  that  the  doctrine  of  a  God,  who  is  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  that  is,  a  triune  God,  is  not  an 
appendage  to  the  Christian  faith,  something  separate 
and  apart  from  essential  Christianity,  a  truth  tliat 
Christians  may  believe  or  not  believe,  as  they  please; 
neither  is  it  a  subsidiary  element  in  the  Christian  creed  ; 
no,  it  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  faith,  it  lies  at  the 
heart  of  Christianity,  so  that  we  cannot  preach  Chris- 
tianity as  the  New  Testament  holds  it  up  to  us  without 
preaching  the  Trinity. 

The  Christian  conception  of  God  necessarily  involves 
the  Trinity,  because  it  represents  Him  as  a  divine 
Father  who  loves  His  children,  and  as  a  divine  Redeemer 
who  gives  His  life  for  their  salvation,  and  as  a  divine 


336         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

Spirit  who  dwells  in  the  human  soul  to  enhghten  and 
to  purify  it.  So  that  when  we  preach  the  gospel  we  are 
preaching  some  aspect  of  the  Trinity  all  the  while, 
though  we  may  not  formally  mention  it  or  even  m„ake 
it  a  definite  subject  of  thought  at  the  time. 

The  greatest  distinctive  peculiarity  of  the  Christian 
religion  is  its  teaching  concerning  God.  It  presents  a 
higher  and  more  developed  conception  of  God  than  had 
ever  been  known  in  the  world  before.  And  it  may  be 
said  that  it  is  the  culmination  of  a  process  of  develop- 
ment in  this  respect.  Careful  study  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment shows  a  very  marked  progress  in  the  apprehen- 
sion of  the  idea  of  God.  There  is  a  nobler  conception 
of  the  divine  nature  in  the  Psalms  than  in  the  Penta- 
teuch. There  is  perhaps  a  still  higher  conception  in 
the  prophets.  But  in  the  New  Testament  there  is  a 
very  marked  development.  And  what  is  its  representa- 
tion of  God?  Well,  first,  we  have  God  held  up  to  our 
thought  as  a  loving,  compassionate  Father,  giving  His 
Son  to  be  the  Redeemer  of  the  world.  Then  we  have 
this  Redeemer,  Jesus  Christ,  held  up  to  us  as  a  being  to 
be  worshipped  and  adored  with  equal  honor  as  the 
Father — indeed  all  the  attributes  of  Deity  ascribed  to 
Him.  Then  we  have  the  teaching  that  there  is  a  Holy 
Spirit  who  comes  to  the  human  spirit  to  enlighten  and 
to  cleanse  it,  and  this  spirit  is  also  represented  as  divine. 
Yet  at  the  same  time  we  are  taught  that  there  is  but 
one  eternal  Almighty  God,  and  that  it  is  idolatry  to 
offer  w^orship  to  any  other  but  to  Him  alone. 

Thus  Christianity  wonderfully  enriched  and  glorified 
the  idea  of  God.  It  presented  such  a  thought  of  God 
as  the'world%ad  never  known  before,  as  far  more  sub- 
lime than  the  greatest  philosophers  had  ever  conceived, 


The  Light  of  the  Holy  Trinity  337 

as  the  modern  conception  of  the  universe  unveiled  to 
us  by  Kepler  and  Newton  is  than  that  which  was  known 
to  the  ancient  Ptolemaic  astronomers. 

It  was  a  conception  of  God  full  of  comfort  and  help 
and  inspiration  to  men.  It  brought  Him  very  close  to 
men's  hearts.  It  lifted  them  up  and  told  them  of  His 
love,  of  His  compassion,  of  His  redemption  of  them,  of 
His  readiness  to  come  into  their  very  hearts  and  take 
up  His  abode  \vith  them,  that  each  Christian  soul  might 
be  an  habitation  of  God  through  the  Spirit. 

But  you  see  that  this  thought  of  God  is  of  a  triune 
God.  The  God  of  redemption  is  a  triune  God,  so  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  in  fact  "the  expresssion  of 
our  faith  in  redemption."  Now,  at  first  men  simply 
accepted  these  several  representations  of  God  as  Father, 
as  Redeemer,  as  indwelling  Sanctifier,  without  reflection 
upon  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  nature  which  they  in- 
volved. The  Trinity  was  to  them  just  the  threefold 
manifestation  of  God.  God  had  revealed  Himself  as 
the  Father.  God  had  revealed  Himself  as  the  Redeemer. 
God  had  revealed  Himself  as  the  Sanctifier. 

But  as  the  mind  of  the  Church  reflected  upon  these 
aspects  of  the  revelation  which  the  New  Testament  con- 
tained it  was  inevitable  that  a  synthesis  should  be  at- 
tempted, an  effort  to  bring  together  these  several  repre- 
sentations into  one  consistent  view.  And  then  it  was 
perceived  that  these  three  manifestations  of  God  must 
liave  a  ground  in  the  essential  nature  of  the  Deity. 
There  must  be  a  triunity  in  the  being  of  God  of  which 
these  manifestations  were  the  reflection  and  expression. 
God  could  not  be  triune  in  His  revelation  of  Himself 
unless  He  was  also  triune  in  His  nature. 

So  necessarily    was  developed    the  doctrine    of  the 


338         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

Trinity,  by  which  the  Church,  now  for  nearly  two  millen- 
niums, has  declared  her  belief  that  in  the  unity  of  the 
divine  nature  there  is  a  threefoldness  which  has  been 
expressed  in  His  threefold  manifestation. 

To  quote  the  Athanasian  creed: 

"  The  Catholic  faith  is  this,  that  we  worship  one  God 
in  Trinity,  and  Trinity  in  Unity;  neither  confounding 
the  Persons,  nor  dividing  the  Substance  [Essence]. 

"For  there  is  one  Person  of  the  Father,  another  of 
the  Son,  and  another  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  But  the  God- 
head of  the  Father,  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
is  all  one:  the  glory  equal,  the  majesty  coeternal. 

"Such  as  the  Father  is,  such  is  the  Son,  and  such 
is  the  Holy  Ghost. 

"The  Father  uncreated,  the  Son  uncreated,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  uncreated.   .  .  . 

"The  Father  eternal;  the  Son  eternal;  the  Holy 
Ghost  eternal. 

"And  yet  there  are  not  three  eternals,  but  one 
eternal.  .  .   . 

"The  Father  is  Almighty,  the  Son  Almighty,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost  Almighty. 

"And  yet  there  are  not  three  Almighties,  but  one 
Almighty. 

"  So  the  Father  is  God,  the  Son  is  God,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  God. 

"And  yet  there  are  not  three  Gods,  but  one  God." 

In  these  words,  and  such  as  these,  the  mind  of  the 
Church  has  sought  to  define  its  belief  in  the  Trinity. 

Now,  it  is  very  easy  to  scoff  at  this  doctrine  as  involv- 
ing a  contradiction  in  terms  and  to  ask  "  How  can  the 
part  be  equal  to  the  whole?  How  can  one  be  equal  to 
three? 'i 


The  Light  of  the  Holy  Trinity  339 

Such  an  objection  seeks  to  settle  a  profound  meta- 
physical and  religious  problem  by  an  appeal  to  the 
multiplication  table.  If  the  matter  were  so  simple  as 
this  it  would  be  strange  indeed  to  find  that  many  of  the 
profoundest  intellects  of  the  ages,  from  St.  Augustine 
to  Leibnitz  and  Hegel,  have  not  only  believed  in  and 
defended  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  but  have  rejoiced  in 
its  belief;  strange,  too,  that  "recent  philosophy  should 
find  in  this  very  doctrine  the  expression  of  its  profound- 
est ideas." 

But,  no.  There  is  no  semblance  of  contradiction  in 
the  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  if  we  only 
observe  that  the  Church  does  not,  in  this  definition,  use 
the  word  "person"  in  its  modern,  but  in  its  ancient 
meaning.  Then  it  "corresponded  more  nearly  to  the 
word  '  character '  as  it  is  used  in  the  drama.  In  early 
Christian  discussions  it  was  never  meant  that  there  were 
three  modernly  conceived  persons  in  God,  nor  can  it 
now  be  maintained."  Strictly  speaking,  in  the  meaning 
now  attached  to  the  word,  God  is  one  Person,  and  what 
the  doctrine  of  Trinity  declares  is  this :  "  God  is  a  Person 
on  whose  nature  there  is  a  threeness  that  has  been  ex- 
pressed in  His  threefold  self-manifestation."  * 

That  this  doctrine  is  a  profound  mystery  we  admit. 
That  the  mind  of  man  can  only  dimly  and  partially  ap- 
prehend it,  never  comprehend  it,  we  admit.  But  that 
it  presents  a  contradiction  to  the  laws  of  thought  we 
utterly  deny.  Nay,  it  is  a  mystery  which  is  full  of  light 
and  comfort  to  the  soul  of  man. 

Who  can  sound  all  the  depths  of  the  sea  or  bring  to 
light  all  the  wonders  of  its  secret  recesses?  Yet  our 
little  children  may  play  in  its  surf  and  find  health  and 
♦Clarke's  Outlines,  p.  171. 


340        The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

joy  in  its  briny  waves.  Even  so,  though  we  cannot 
sound  the  depths  of  this  doctrine  or  comprehend  the 
infinite  nature  of  God,  yet  the  humblest  and  least-learned 
Christian  may  find  joy  and  refreshment  in  the  thought 
that  in  the  unity  of  the  divine  nature  there  is  this  three- 
fold mode  of  being,  so  that  we  can  look  up  to  God  as 
our  Father,  as  our  Redeemer,  and  as  our  Sanctifier. 

Now,  my  friends,  let  me  in  a  few  concluding  words 
seek  to  illustrate  the  reasonableness  of  this  great  doc- 
trine of  our  faith. 

See  in  the  Trinity  an  illustration  of  the  law  which 
seems  to  rule  among  the  forms  of  life  on  this  globe  of 
ours,  whereby  as  we  rise  along  the  scale  of  living  things 
we  find  a  greater  and  greater  complexity  of  organi- 
zation combined  with  a  complete  unity.  The  higher 
animals  are  more  complex  than  the  lower.  Man  is 
the  most  complex  of  them  all,  both  in  his  bodily  func- 
tions and  in  his  whole  wondrous  organism  of  body,  soul, 
and  spirit.  Yet  in  no  creature  does  oneness,  individ- 
uality, stand  out  so  strongly  developed  as  in  him. 

The  Trinity  affirms  this  same  law  in  relation  to  God, 
indicating  that  in  the  unity  of  the  Godhead  there  is 
multiplicity — trinity  in  unity. 

Again,  we  are  told  that  man  was  made  in  the  image 
of  God,  so  that  we  may  rightly  expect  to  find  in  the  con- 
stitution of  our  human  nature  a  reflex  of  the  divine. 
Thus  in  the  moral  nature  of  man  we  see  reflected  as  in 
a  mirror  the  moral  attributes  of  God — justice,  mercy, 
purity,  goodness,  truth. 

But  is  there  not  a  trinity  in  the  constitution  of  man? 
Is  he  not  a  threefold  being — body  soul,  and  spirit — with- 
out for  a  moment  losing  his  unity,  his  individual  oneness? 

And  further,  is  there  not  in  the  constitution  of  the 


The  Light  of  the  Holy  Trinity  341 

spirit  of  man  another  example  of  triunity  in  the  three- 
fold division  of  his  powers,  viz.,  the  intellect,  the  af- 
fections, and  the  will?  These  three  powers  are  clearly 
distinct.  The  intellect  is  one  thing ;  the  affections 
— the  heart — another;  the  will  yet  another.  Yet  all 
coexist  in  the  unity  of  the  human  person. 

To  use  the  language  of  Phillips  Brooks :  "  If  it  be  so 
that  in  the  constitution  of  humanity  we  have  the  fairest 
.  .  .  picture  of  the  divine  existence,  then  shall  we  not  say 
that  Christ  gave  us,  .  .  .  in  His  social  thought  of  man, 
an  insight  into  the  essentialness  and  value  of  that  social 
thought  of  God  which  we  call  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity? 
May  it  not  be  that  only  by  multiplicity  and  interior 
self-relationship  can  divinity  have  the  completest  self- 
consciousness  and  energy  ?  " 

Yet  once  more  see  how  this  truth  of  the  Trinity  har- 
monizes with  the  sublimest  and  dearest  definition  of 
the  Deity,  I  mean  that  which  Christianity  first  gave  to 
man,  "  God  is  love.".  Only  the  doctrine  of  the  triunity  of 
God  "  affords  a  social  conception  of  God,"  or  satisfies 
this  wonderful  definition  of  His  nature.  "  If  God  is  love, 
eternally,  not  only,  it  would  seem,  must  the  impulse  of 
love  be  in  Him  eternal;  it  would  seem  also  that  there 
must  eternally  be  an  object  fully  worthy  of  His  affection. 
But  such  an  object  must  be  as  great  as  Himself  and  as 
good.  He  must  have  such  an  object  in  Himself,  if 
He  has  it  at  all."  And  (reverently  we  say  it)  He 
has  it  in  the  eternal  Son  whom  we  call  the  Second  in  the 
adorable  Trinity.  "The  perfect  Father  eternally  loves 
the  Son,  in  whom  His  perfections  become  effective  for 
gracious  activity;  and  the  perfect  Son  eternally  loves 
the  Father  in  whom  His  perfections  have  their  spring."  * 
♦Clarke's  Outlines,  p.  176 


342         The  Gospel  in  the  Christian  Year 

I  am  deeply  conscious,  my  dear  brethren,  how  poor 
and  weak  the  words  are  in  which  I  seek  to  convey  to 
you  my  thought  upon  this  sublime  doctrine.  But,  still, 
may  I  not  hope  that  I  may  make  you  feel  how  reason- 
able it  is  that  the  Being  of  the  Infinite  God,  in  whose 
image  we  are  made,  should  be  like  our  human  being,  in 
that  it  should  not  be  a  bare  solitary  unity,  without  any 
inner  self-distinctions,  without  any  inner  mutually  re- 
lated modes  of  existence,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  there 
should  be  in  the  divine  nature  something  analogous 
to  that  multiplicity  or  complexity  which  we  perceive  in 
our  human  nature;  something  diinly  corresponding  to 
those  diverse  powers — the  intellect,  the  affections,  the 
will — which  we  are  conscious  of  possessing,  and  which, 
though  distinct,  are  held  together  in  the  unity  of  every 
man's  personality?  If  I  may  hope  as  much,  then  I 
have  not  labored  in  vain  to  commend  the  doctrine  of 
the  Holy  Trinity  to  your  understanding. 

And  may  I  not  also  hope  that  in  the  light  of  our  study 
of  this  doctrine  to-day  you  may  further  perceive  that 
the  God  who  has  planted  the  social  instinct  so  deep  in 
the  heart  of  man,  the  God  whose  name  and  nature  is 
love,  from  all  eternity,  could  not  be  a  solitary  unit,  a 
bare  monad,  so  to  speak,  with  no  interior  self-relation- 
ship, nothing  corresponding  to  that  wondrous  and 
blessed  name  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost?  Such  a 
Being  might  be  infinite  and  eternal  Power,  or  infinite 
and  eternal  Wisdom;  He  could  not  be  infinite  and  eternal 
Love. 

A  distinguished  astronomer  of  our  generation  con- 
cludes a  profound  and  learned  volume,  in  which  he  has 
sought  to  teU  the  story  of  the  heavens  in  the  light  of 
the   most   advanced  science  with  these  words:  "How 


The  Light  of  the  Holy  Trinity  343 

little  can  we  see  with  even  our  greatest  telescopes,  when 
compared  with  the  whole  extent  of  infinite  space !  No 
matter  how  vast  may  be  the  depth  which  our  instru- 
ments have  sounded,  there  is  yet  a  beyond  of  infinite 
extent." 

These  words  of  this  learned  scientist  but  feebly  ex- 
press what  must  be  the  feelings  of  him  who,  even  if  ten- 
fold better  equipped  than  he  who  speaks  to  you  to-day, 
attempts  to  discourse  upon  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 
The  Being  of  God  is  a  theme  of  far  vaster  extent  than 
even  the  boundless  extent  of  infinite  space.  It  is  but 
a  very  httle  distance  that  even  the  greatest  intellects 
can  penetrate  into  such  a  field.  The  limit  of  human 
powers  is  soon  reached,  and  even  an  Augustine  or  a 
Leibnitz  must  confess  that  there  is  in  the  nature  of 
God  "  a  beyond  of  infini  te  extent "  which  their  philoso- 
phizing has  not  even  approached. 

Yet  as  even  the  smallest  telescope  reveals  much  that 
is  wonderful  in  the  mechanism  of  the  universe,  so  even 
so  modest  a  study  as  ours  to-day  may  give  us  a  larger 
conception  of  the  glory  of  the  eternal  Trinity,  and  make 
clear  the  meaning  of  the  apostolic  benediction,  "The 
grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love  of  God,  and 
the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost  be  with  you  all. 
Amen.'' 


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